Uncharted: Jamshid's Cup
by dhaken666
Summary: Nathan Drake is hired to find a collection of objects by a young man named Jayden. Among the objects is what he believes is the Cup of Jamshid. Interested in an object that could be original Grail, Drake heads to Turkey in search of the item. But of course, nothing is ever a simple search and recover.
1. Part One

"These guys are persistent!" Nathan Drake complained, shaking dirt out of his hair. He sent a bitter glare in the direction of his traveling companion.

"I said I was sorry!" answered the young man, his voice cracking as he shrank away from another explosion.

"And _I_ said it would be a good idea for you to wear a hat!" Drake spat back, still glaring at Jayden. They were in part of the Colchian Rainforest and he told the kid to pack so he would blend in. No such luck. Jayden's hair was a red, spiky eyesore. And not the typical washed out orange-red, but dark, blood red. To make matters worse, his shirt was vivid purple. At least his pants and boots were blending into the scenery.

"Christ!" the kid squeaked, bringing his arms up to cover his head.

Drake rolled his eyes as he leveled the pilfered rifle and picked off one of the morons with the grenade launchers.

Puffing out a sigh, Jayden ducked lower behind the hill they were using as cover. His hair still stuck above the grass.

"You're the one who wanted to tag along. You knew it could get dangerous."

"Yeah, but I figured the danger would come later rather than sooner."

"Just don't get in the way, don't get kidnapped, and don't get shot," Drake replied. He was only putting up with the kid because he was paying his a hundred grand and covering all expenses.

The familiar rapport of a shotgun echoed through the ringing in Drake's ears, sounding too far off to be useful. Jayden's yelp on the other hand, was right in his ear. He looked over and saw blood dribbling down his bicep.

"What the hell did I _just_ say?" Drake demanded, returning fire.

"Sorry," Jayden mumbled through clenched teeth.

"You take a shot well for a rookie," Drake admitted, a little impressed as the kid pulled his blood-slick sleeve away from the wound. It was shallow, but Drake was familiar enough with bullet wounds to know they all hurt like hell.

"Not actually my first bullet wound," commented Jayden as he pulled a roll of gauze from one pocket of his cargo pants.

Drake's eyebrows shot up to greet his hairline. "Oh?"

"Can we maybe save the story for another time? Like when people aren't shooting at us?" Jayden asked, glancing around. He saw a place that would make better cover than the hill, did a sort of somersault roll forward, and pressed his back against the remnants of the stone wall that was at least a few hundred years past its prime.

Frowning, Drake turned his attention back to the bad guys. He was busy firing into the trees and didn't see that someone had lobbed a grenade in their direction until it was too late. He tried diving away from it, but it exploded, throwing his to the side with concussive force. If it had been any closer, he would have been hamburger.

"Crap," he cursed, rolling onto his back with a wheeze. His ears were ringing again and his eyes stung. When the stars finally cleared from his vision, he was looking up the business end of an M-16. "Crap," he repeated. The bad guys surrounded them and hauled them both to their feet.

"You aren't taking us to jail, are you? 'Cuz I've spent some time in a Turkish prison and it wasn't a whole lot of fun," Drake said as a huge, absurdly muscular man patted his down for weapons. "Whoa! Getting a little too friendly there, Tiny."

"Shut up!" the man with the M-16 slugged Drake.

"Ow," Drake grumbled, spitting out blood. His teeth had cut the inside of his cheek when the man's hand connected. "Just so you guys know, we haven't got anything you could possibly want."

"Hayden doesn't care," the man with the gun growled.

Jayden rolled his eyes and gave in as he was searched as well. "Great," he drawled.

Drake wasn't a fan of that tone. "So, who's Hayden?" he asked as Gunboy and Muscles gave them a shove to get them moving.

"That's the brother I've been telling you about."

"…Crap."

_ ~One Week Earlier~ _

Drake tipped his beer to his lips, took a swig, and set it down again with a content sigh. All of his cuts and bruises had finally healed, he could get around without wincing, and his nagging headache was gone as well. He still didn't know why he had tagged along with Sully on that last outing. From the get-go he _knew_ it was going to go horribly wrong, which it had. He was glad he had been there to keep an eye on his old friend though.

Shaking his head, his lips twitched into a smirk. The look on Sully's face when they had found that pile of gold and jewels had been priceless. He wished he'd had a camera.

Drake took another swig from the bottle.

"Excuse me, are you Nathan Drake?"

Glancing over his shoulder, Drake eyed the young man. His red hair was just as hard on the eyes as his canary yellow tee shirt. He looked immature and a little vacant, but the way he carried himself said something entirely different. He blinked at the kid. "Depends on who's askin'," he replied, turning his attention back to his beer. There was some shuffling behind him and a little piece of paper appeared in his peripheral vision.

"Jayden Risyn."

Scowling, Drake took the card and looked up at the kid. "Risyn? Why does that sound familiar?"

"My father runs a profitable antiquities business."

Drake sat up straight and gave the kid his full attention. "Michael Risyn is your dad? You poor bastard," he chuckled, extending a hand to the kid.

Jayden grinned as he shook Drake's hand. "He's not all bad."

"So what does the old man want me to find this time? The Holy Grail? Noah's Ark?" Drake leaned back in his chair again, propping an elbow on the table. He tried not to be too obvious about staring at the kid's hair.

Taking a seat across from Drake, Jayden folded his arms on the table and frowned. "Actually, I'm not here on his behalf. I want to hire you to find something. It's a personal job that dad doesn't know anything about."

Drake was curious. Michael Risyn knew about _everything_. And it was always business.

The kid glanced around nervously. "Do you think we could talk about this elsewhere? I don't want to take any chances on someone eavesdropping."

Shrugging, Drake finished his beer, got up and paid the bartender. He didn't have anything better to do today. "Anywhere in particular?"

"Actually I have a room at the hotel down the street. If you're worried I might have people waiting to ambush you, don't be. I'm working completely on my own."

"Oh, I'm not even a little concerned about that," Drake answered, shoving his hands into his pockets. This kid didn't look smart enough to plan ahead like that.

"And I don't swing that way, so you don't need to worry about that, either," Jayden joked with a grin.

"What? Now there's a thought that never even crossed my mind. What I was th—y'know what? Never mind. Lead the way." Drake waved his hand vaguely before him and followed the kid. He frowned at the scuffed toes of his sneakers as they walked to Jayden's hotel.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Jayden asked when they entered his suite.

Drake shook his head and sat down on one of the overstuffed white couches. "What makes you think someone didn't bug this place while you were out?" he asked, shaking his head at the high-class suite. Low profile was not in this kid's vocabulary.

"I took precautions."

"Smart kid. So, let's get to the point, shall we?"

"Sure." Bending down, Jayden rummaged through a duffle bag that was on the floor beside the other couch. After a few seconds, he pulled out a folder and an old, leather-bound book and sat down heavily. Placing the items on the low coffee table, he slid them across to Drake.

"This is the Risyn journal. It's more-or-less a log of the majority of the items we've recovered over the years. And here are some photos of a collection of treasures we're trying to recover. I'm looking for two specifically."

Flipping the folder open, Drake shuffled through the contents. A couple of photos were marked. One was a beautifully crafted statue of an Oriental style dragon carved from ruby and inlaid with gold. It was a stunning piece, but it didn't look like anything important to Drake.

Jayden noticed Drake had paused on the dragon and he leaned forward, tapping the picture. "That one I want purely for sentimental reasons. This is what both my Great Granddad and my Granddad thought the real treasure was," he said, shuffling the photos around on the table until he found what he was looking for.

Drake looked down at the picture and quirked a brow. He didn't know what he was supposed to be looking at, but it looked even less significant than the dragon. The item was a small, circular golden piece. It was no bigger than a dollar coin with faded engravings on both sides. Unfortunately, after years of wear, the engravings were impossible to make out.

"What's this?" Drake asked, glancing up at Jayden from under his eyebrows.

"I believe it is part of Brísingamen," Jayden answered, like that meant something to Drake.

One brow crept upward. "And that is?" The name sounded Norse, but that wasn't really his area of expertise.

Jayden smiled. "The Brísingamen was Freya's treasured necklace."

"Freya? As in _wife of Odin_?" The other eyebrow joined the first.

"Yup. If this little piece of gold is what I think, it's priceless." Jayden flipped through the old journal and pulled out a photo of a painting. "Here, this is Freya wearing the necklace."

Drake took the print and placed it next to the picture of the gold piece. He stared at each one for a few seconds. "I'm not convinced. Could be what you think, but it just looks like an old coin to me. What else ya got?" He slid the photos back across the table and looked up at Jayden.

The kid scowled as he flipped through the journal. "There are all sorts of things in this collection and I want that dragon, but maybe we have something else to motivate you," he sighed, tossing Drake more photos.

Drake flipped through the new stack, seeing a lot of run-of-the-mill treasures. Gold coins that looked a lot like the piece the kid was fussing over, jewels, old weapons and some art, but there wasn't really anything that was standing out to him. This was looking like it would be a boring recovery until one of the pictures caught his eye. It was a flat, elongated bowl with seven ridges. It was kind of plain, any luster worn off in the many, many years since its creation, but for some reason, it was speaking to him. He wanted to get his hands on this piece.

Letting out a breath, Drake tossed the photos back onto the table.

Jayden held up his hands, mistaking the expression on Drake's face for disinterest. "Before you turn me down, let me tell you how much I'm willing to pay for the recovery of the dragon."

Drake shrugged, letting the kid think what he wanted. "I'm not a cheap date."

"A hundred grand plus expenses."

Drake had bills to pay, just like everyone and that was as good an amount as any. He doubted the dragon was even worth that much. "Sounds good to me. But something tells me this isn't going to be as simple as it seems." He quirked a brow at Jayden.

"Well, that all depends on my brother. He wants the dragon too, and he's got more money and resources than I do. He's been selling off bits of the collection, lying to buyers about the true worth of the pieces. He's making an absurd amount of money from this stuff and he's got mercenaries on speed dial to help him," answered Jayden, looking down at the journal on the table.

"So what's the deal with this collection anyway? Kind of an odd assortment of objects," said Drake, fanning the photos out across the table.

"You've met my dad. Our whole family shares the same passion for old treasures whether they are worth anything or not. This was a personal collection, not for sale. When my granddad was moving to the states, the entire collection was stole and sold off. We've been recovering pieces over the years with the help of friends overseas and tips that come in," the kid explained, dragging a hand through his spiked hair.

Nodding, Drake leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He pointed at the picture of the bowl. "What about this one?"

"What? Why that one? There's nothing special about it…"

Drake shook his head. "If your brother is as money hungry as you say and knows his folklore, he'll be after this one."

"But it's a piece of junk!"

Smirking, Drake picked up the picture and held it out to Jayden. "Just because it isn't shiny, doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Ever watched _The Last Crusade_?"

Jayden gaped. "What the hell does this have to do with a movie?"

Drake flopped back on the couch and stifled a groan. "Do you want my help recovering the dragon, or not?"

Jayden's lip twitched into an almost-sneer. He stuffed the picture back into the journal. "Course I do. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to track you down if I didn't."

"Then we do things my way. I'll help you get that dragon, but only _after_ I get this bowl and check it out. Do you have any information on it?"

Sighing heavily, Jayden pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. He put the phone to his ear and waited. When the person on the other end finally picked up, he spoke without so much as a greeting. "Yeah, I need to know about that ridged bowl." He fell silent for a moment, said okay a couple of times, gave his thanks, and then hung up. "Apparently an item fitting the description of the bowl was spotted at a shop in Hopa, Turkey."

"Hopa, hey?" Drake pushed himself to his feet and walked toward the door. "I hope your passport is up-to-date."

"Where are you going?" Jayden asked, standing as well.

"I need to make some calls," Drake replied with a shrug, shoving his hands into his pockets. He wanted to fill Sully in on what he may have found and he wanted to get some gear ready to go in Hopa, just in case.

"I'm leaving around dawn tomorrow. Meet me at this address," said Jayden, handing over a scrap of paper. It was the address of a private airstrip.

Drake nodded and slipped the paper into his back pocket. "Oh, and be sure you bring a hat or something."

"Why?"

Drake just looked up at Jayden's hair. He shook his head and let himself out of the suite. He walked back to the bar before hailing a cab in case someone was tailing him. He didn't notice anyone suspicious as he got into the cab, but it never hurt to be cautious.

Once he was in the cab, he gave the driver his destination, pulled out his own cell phone and called up Sully.


	2. Part Two

"Okay, Kid. What's so important that you called me away from my prior engagement?" Victor 'Sully' Sullivan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Chuckling quietly, Drake shook his head. Sully's only prior engagement was flirting with the desk clerk at his hotel. "I'm gonna ask you a dumb question, okay?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Drake ignored his friend's quip. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you've heard of the Holy Grail."

"You'd have to living pretty deep under a rock to not have," Sully replied, pulling a cigar from his breast pocket and sticking it in his mouth. Sully rarely smoked the things, which was fine with Drake because they had to be one of the worst things he had ever smelled.

"Do you know the supposed origin story of the Grail?" Drake now asked, lips quirking up in one corner.

Brow furrowed, Sully looked across the table at Drake. "That I'm a little fuzzier on," he replied, speaking around the cigar.

Drake nodded. "You wouldn't be alone. Back when the Persian Empire was still in existence, there was one king named Jamshid. According to the legend, he was in power for _centuries_. He had this seven-ringed cup called the _Jām-e Jam_. It was said to contain an elixir of immortality and let him observe the universe.

"Eventually the power went to his head and people started to rebel. He fled his capital, but was tracked down and brutally murdered. The _Jām-e Jam_ went missing and hasn't been seen since. I think I may have found it…or at least a clue to its hiding place." Drake was smiling as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"So this…" Sully waved his hand vaguely.

"_Jām-e Jam_."

"Yeah, that. So it's basically the original grail? And you're after it?" Sully asked, frowning. "You know how crazy that sounds, Nate?"

Spreading his arms wide, Drake smirked. "Hey, we thrive on crazy. If we didn't, half the stuff we've found would still be lost."

The smirk spread to Sully's lips. "You got a point, Kid. So, how the hell did you come across this thing?"

"Remember Michael Risyn?"

Sully groaned. "Don't tell me this is another one of his wild goose chases, Nate."

"No, no. His kid wants me to find something for him. He had a stack of missing pieces and it caught my eye. Even if it turns out to be nothing, all I have to do is recover this ruby dragon statue for him and it's a hundred grand in my pocket when I'm done." While the money would be nice, Drake was more interested in an artifact that had the potential to prove a legend wasn't just a legend. It was thrilling looking for something that had been lost for centuries.

Sully didn't even raise a brow at the amount. Over the years they had given up on or lost sums much larger than that. Smoothing his moustache, Sully sighed, propping one elbow on the table. He watched cars pass by the café for a few seconds before looking back at his friend.

"So, how do you know this…?"

"_Jām-e Jam_."

"Yeah, that. How do you know that's what you're after?"

"The design was right and it looked older than dirt. Of course, I won't know for sure until I get my hands on actual object," Drake replied with a shrug. Once he had made up his mind to hunt something down, it was pretty hard to change it.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to look. Where you headed?"

"Turkey. You in?"

"Nah. I'm still healing from the last outing. You forget I've got decades on you, Nate," Sully said with a laugh.

Drake did a palms-up shrug. "Suit yourself."

~oOo~

Drake stood on the tarmac with his duffel bag in hand. He looked up at the sad excuse for a plane and gave Jayden a sideways glance. "You're rich, but this is the best you could do?" he asked. The buckets Sully flew were in better shape than this.

Jayden smiled with pride at the tin can with wings. "She may not be pretty, but she's solid. Flew 'er to Botswana last month, in fact."

"You flew it?"

"Sure did!"

"Great." Drake wasn't a fan of flying in these things at the best of times. More often than not, something went wrong. Crashes were not as foreign to him as he would have liked. But he was used to flying with Sully, who was a great pilot. Now he got to be Doogie's passenger. Drake was a little less than thrilled.

He trudged along behind Jayden and crammed his duffel behind the seat before hoisting himself into the plane. He watched as Jayden climbed in and started doing a pre-flight check. The engine sputtered to life, not filling Drake with much confidence, but he remained silent.

Buckling himself in and putting on his headset, Drake looked out the windscreen. When the plane started to roll forward, Drake spoke up. "This thing has parachutes, right?"

Jayden's mouth twisted to one side in thought. "There may be one or two," he finally said with a grin as he pulled back on the yoke.

"May…be…?"

Jayden just grinned.

~oOo~

It had been a few years since Drake was last in Turkey, but he always enjoyed the mixture of modern and traditional here. This was his first time in Hopa, but the mix was still there. Elements of Western, Ottoman, European and Asian cultures could be spotted just about everywhere.

Drake leaned against the wall outside the hotel, waiting for Jayden to be done on his phone. He had his arms crossed and his ankles crossed, trying to appear casual. Blending in wasn't something Drake was fantastic at, but something he always tried his best to do. His record wasn't exactly squeaky clean, so he preferred not to draw too much attention to himself if possible.

"So the shop is about three blocks west of here," Jayden said, stepping up beside Drake.

Speaking of unwanted attention…

"You said your brother was after all this stuff, too. What makes you think he hasn't already gotten the things you're after?" Drake questioned as he stood up straight. He pretended not to notice the looks Jayden's hair was getting.

Jayden shrugged. "He may have tons of people working for him, but they aren't exactly intelligent. They wouldn't know the difference between a real treasure and a knock-off. I've duped them a few times."

Drake twisted his mouth up and puffed a sigh through his nose. "Right. So why do you need me then? I'm guessing I'm not just here because of my charm?"

"Well, I _wanted_ you to find Freya's necklace, but since you aren't even remotely interested in that, basically the dragon is my main concern. My brother has it."

Groaning, Drake rolled his eyes. "Of course he does. Why didn't you just tell me that to begin with?"

"I figured I'd let you know after I got you interested in working for me," Jayden replied with a shrug.

Drake squeezed his eyes shut and ran both hands through his short brown hair. He vaguely noted that it was time for a trim as he got into a cab with Jayden. They rode to the shop in silence, Drake resisting the urge to punch Jayden in the nose. He should have known there was something the kid wasn't telling him. He was Michael Risyn's kid through and through.

"Care to tell me what's so interesting about this bowl?" Jayden asked him as they reached their destination. He paid the driver and climbed out of the cab.

As they headed into the shop, Drake repeated the story of Jamshid and the cup.

"Seriously?" asked Jayden when he finished. "Please tell me you're kidding."

Drake shook his head and headed to the clerk at the counter. "Nope. Give me the picture," he replied, holding out his hand.

Jayden hung his head and grumbled something under his breath as he pulled the journal out of his jacket. He handed over the picture and raised his eyebrows at Drake.

Turning to the clerk, he handed over the photo and asked about the bowl. He was glad the man spoke English because his Turkish was lacking.

"This thing is popular lately," the clerk said, pulling the item out from under the counter.

"Oh yeah?" Drake picked up the bowl and slowly turned it over in his hands.

"I've had a couple people in here to look at it. I was asked to hold it for someone, but if you make me a better offer, it's yours."

Jayden took a step forward, elbowing past Drake. "How much?"

Tuning out the two men, Drake continued to examine the bowl. It was exactly as the legends described the _Jām-e Jam_. And it was old enough to be the fabled item as well. Of course, it wasn't in the best shape, but good enough for him to make out a faded inscription lining the rings of the bowl.

"Hello? Drake?" The redhead waved his hand in front of Drake's face, trying to catch his attention.

When Drake looked up, Jayden was watching him with one brow arched and his arms crossed over his chest. A smile spread on his lips.

"You can take all the time you want with it when we get back to the hotel," Jayden told him.

An expression that was almost a pout flickered across Drake's face. He tucked the bowl into the satchel he wore at his hip. "We aren't going to be there long."

"Huh?"

"Just long enough for me to translate the inscription on the bowl," Drake said, scrubbing his hand over his stubbly chin.

Jayden chased after Drake as the man headed back onto the street. "Inscription? What inscription?"

"Let me see that journal," replied Drake, holding out his hand.

"When we get back to the hotel. But I've been through it and I don't remember anything about an inscription," said Jayden, frowning at Drake.

With a shrug, Drake let his arm fall back to his side. He didn't particularly care what the kid thought. He could _feel_ that there was something about this bowl. If it wasn't the Cup itself, then it led to something and he wanted to find out what that something was. From his brief once-over of the bowl, he thought the faded inscription looked like Sanskrit. While that was completely wrong for where the bowl was supposed to have originated, it was still good. It was another mystery surrounding the item, but he could read Sanskrit. He just hoped it didn't turn out to be something completely inane.

"Do you do this a lot?"

"Do what?" He glanced over at Jayden.

"Space out."

"I wasn't spacing out."

"I called your name at least three times. I hailed us a cab, but I guess you'd prefer to walk."

Frowning, Drake glanced over his shoulder. He was already half a block away from the shop and on the other side of the street. "I was thinking."

"Yeah, whatever."

Ignoring Jayden's attempts at conversation, Drake led the way back to the hotel. As soon as they were in the safety of their room and they swept it for bugs, Drake pulled out the bowl and asked for the journal again. Jayden reluctantly handed it over and flopped onto his own bed. He watched as the treasure hunter took out his own journal and a pencil.

"What are you hoping to find?" Jayden asked after a moment.

"I'll know when I find it," he replied, opening the Risyn journal.


	3. Part Three

"The Guardian Beneath the trees far from home holds the Key," Drake mumbled under his breath for the hundredth time since they left the hotel an hour earlier. He scowled as he drove the rickety, barely functioning Land Rover down the dirt road.

"Would it kill you to pay attention to the road? Or let me drive?" Jayden complained, clutching the dash with white knuckles.

"I can multitask, y'know," grumbled Drake. The inscription in the bowl had been that sentence and he was repeating it to himself as he drove, hoping it might give him more insight. He had seen more vague clues and puzzles before, but that had never stopped him.

"Yeah, but you didn't sleep all night!"

It was true. He had stayed up the entire night, pouring through the Risyn journal, doing a few sketches of the bowl in his own journal, and of course, translating the inscription. The journal had some interesting tidbits about a few different items, whether the information was true or not was hard to say. It had been an intriguing read, however. And most of the items had co-ordinates written in the journal where the items had been found. If there were none, there was a description of the area and the country they had been found. The page for the bowl did not have co-ordinates, but it described an area somewhere in the rainforest that borders the Black Sea. Drake decided they should check it out.

"Why the hell are we driving out to the middle of nowhere anyway?" Jayden asked with a sigh, slouching in his seat.

"Couple of reasons," Drake answered. "I wanna check out the ruins where the bowl was originally found, and according to the stories about Jamshid, when he fled, he went halfway around the world to escape. The known world wasn't all that big back then, so I'm thinking he may have ended up in what is now Georgia. Plus the inscription was carved into the bowl _long_ after the bowl itself was made. It says _trees far from home_. The Colchian rainforest makes sense."

Jayden nodded. "Fine, I'll humor you, but if we don't find anything by the end of the day, you'll forget this and go after the dragon."

Drake's eyes slid toward Jayden. "Deal." Truthfully, he'd have to be way luckier than he was to find anything in that time limit, but there had to be something out there. The Guardian Beneath the trees far from home holds the Key. What did it mean? His train of thought was disrupted when a yawn overwhelmed him.

"Let me drive before you run us off a cliff," Jayden grumbled.

"I only drove off a cliff one time, but I did it on purpose," Drake teased, gauging the kid's reaction. The stunned look was amusing. But their drive would be a couple more hours at least and since they weren't on main roads, the terrain was more dangerous. He hadn't slept in almost forty-eight hours and his mind wasn't exactly operating at peak efficiency.

Eventually Drake let out a long-suffering sigh and pulled off to the side of the dirt road. He got out, stretched, and switched places with Jayden. He didn't particularly trust the kid, but he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.

"You'd better be a better driver than you are a pilot because I'd like to make it into the rainforest in one piece," he said as he settled into the passenger seat and folded his arms over his chest.

"Like I said before, that was turbulence and therefore not my fault," sighed Jayden. "We landed in one piece."

"Tell that to the landing gear," Drake grumbled. It had snapped in half as soon as they touched down.

"You're impossible."

Drake's eyes got wide and he threw his hands in the air. "Landing gears snapping in half is not normal!"

"You're still alive aren't you?"

Drake help up his hand and opened his mouth to say something. He changed his mind and gave a dismissive wave. "Just don't drive us off a cliff."

"If I do, it certainly won't be on purpose."

Drake closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Taking a deep breath of the humid costal air, he settled in for a cat nap. He let his mind wander, thinking of the bits and pieces of the legends and stories he knew of Jamshid. Not much of it was useful, unfortunately. The king had supposedly eliminated all sickness during his rule—most likely because of whatever elixir was rumored to have been in the cup. He had also supposedly discovered wine, but Drake doubted those two things were connected. At some point during his rule, he started to claim to be the Creator as well, and that didn't really sit well with his people. They started to turn on him and he fled, travelling half way across the world before he was found and cut in two. All the weapons and armor he was rumored to have invented clearly didn't help him.

Jamshid was a big part of Iranian folklore as well, appearing in poems and art. Drake wasn't so much concerned with the man himself rather than the so-called magical cup he possessed. The bowl they got at the shop looked just like what was described in legends, but he couldn't believe that it was the real things. The bowl must have just been for the public eye. There had to be something bigger behind this. The Guardian Beneath the trees far from home holds the Key.

"The clock is ticking, Drake. Wake up, already!" Jayden said, shaking the man's shoulder.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Drake sat up in his seat. His back popped as he leaned forward to look out the windshield. Dense, vivid greenery, fog and the occasional sunbeam were his view. A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth as he pushed himself out of the vehicle. His sneakers sank into the spongy ground and a slight chill raced up his spine. It was somewhere around fifty degrees and the humidity was high. It wasn't the most pleasant out door conditions, but it was far from the worst.

As Drake walked forward, careful of his footing, he glanced back at the Land Rover. Its front tires had become partially submerged in the marshy ground where Jayden parked.

"You just love to kill our transportation, don't you?" he asked, stretching.

"It still works, it's just a little…stuck," Jayden replied, a tinge of pink across his cheeks.

Rolling his eyes, Drake headed deeper into the forest. As he walked, he checked the pistol he kept in the leather holster at his side. It was good to go just in case they ran into any trouble. Of course, the most he expected to see in way of trouble was perhaps a bear or a jackal. Still, that was threat enough.

"What are we looking for exactly?"

Drake didn't even glance at Jayden as he easily hopped a narrow stream. "Some old, overgrown ruins. Anything that looks man-made."

Jayden sighed in annoyance as he followed. "You do know that most of this place has been reforested, right? Anything that used to be here probably doesn't exist anymore."

"Why do you think we're in this out of the way place? This is part of the original Colchic Forest," Drake exhaled, testing out a particularly soggy bit of ground before changing direction.

Jayden fell silent for a while after that, following obediently behind Drake. He muttered a few complaints about the landscape, but Drake ignored him. Yes it was cool and damp. Yes, it was muddy. And yes, it smelled like mouldy leaves, but they were in a costal, temperate rainforest. These things were all part and parcel. Drake was actually enjoying this somewhat relaxing tour through the heart of the Georgian part of the Colchian rainforest until they came to a cliff. The cliff was actually one side of a narrow valley, perhaps about one hundred fifty feet across where they stood, at the bottom a rushing river. A fallen tree connected both sides, but the wood was sodden and the bark rotting off in spots.

Drake shrugged one shoulder and hefted himself onto the end of the tree.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jayden's jaw was hanging open.

"Deluding myself into believing this won't crumble under me as I cross," Drake replied, putting his arms out to the sides for balance as he ventured out from solid land. The tree groaned under his weight but didn't budge.

"No, I mean—ugh—there's got to be another way across!" Jayden shouted.

"Maybe if you feel like walking a couple dozen miles. Where's your sense of adventure?" As Drake made his way toward the middle of the tree, his shoe slipped on rotten bark and he flailed.

"Drake!"

"Whoa! Crap!" Drake wobbled, pitching to one side, over compensated and tipped to the other side. He teetered, flailing his arms to try to regain his balance for long, tense seconds before he managed to right his footing and steady himself. "No worries," he said with a nervous chuckle.

"Dammit, Drake!" Jayden stomped one foot, making the soggy ground around the tree roots shift. The tree slipped in its place, dropping at least a foot into the muddy cliff side.

"I am really starting to think you may be bad luck!" Drake said, his voice cracking as he took a few cautious steps forward. He was satisfied the tree wasn't going to fall out from under him in the next ten seconds, so he quickly crossed to the other side. He took a deep, steadying breath and turned around to face Jayden. "Easy as pie!" he said with his arms out.

"You're insane!" Jayden called back.

Drake grinned. "That was nothing! Scaling the side of a fortress with no safety gear while bad men shoot at you? _That's_ insane!"

Jayden swallowed hard. "Here goes nothing," he mumbled, stepping up onto the tree. He took slow, steady breaths with each step and could feel the sodden, rotten tree bark sliding under his feet. He was almost two-thirds of the way across when he made one bad step. With a crunch, his boot went through the wood. He had fallen in up to his knee and was now quite stuck.

"How did you manage to find the _one_ hollow spot on that tree?" Drake asked, crossing his arms.

"That's not really important!" Jayden yanked on his leg, trying to keep his balance at the same time, but he wasn't having any luck. "Are you just gonna stand there, or are you going to help me?"

"I don't think it'll hold both our weight," Drake said seriously. "Try chipping away the wood around your leg."

Jayden couldn't even get his fingers between the wood and his leg and he couldn't reach his knife. "No good," he called to Drake.

Letting his arms drop to his sides, Drake scowled. He looked past Jayden to the tree roots. Dirt was crumbling away around the roots and it looked like it would let go any minute.

"Gonna have to make this quick," he said, climbing back onto the tree. Puffing out a sharp breath, he took a few steps forward. The tree gave a loud groan and slid another few inches.

"Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap…" This was not looking good. When he reached Jayden, he grabbed the kid's arms and pulled.

"Dammit!" Jayden hissed between his teeth as the wood dug into his leg.

"Oh, this is not good. This is very, very not good." Drake's eyes were wide as he stopped tugging on Jayden to look over his shoulder.

Jayden was about to ask what when he felt the tree shift below them. It was about to plummet.

Drake let out a low growl. "Ah, screw it!"

"Screw what?"

Drake lifted his leg and slammed his heel into the wood in front of Jayden's leg. The splinters jabbed painfully into his skin and Jayden let out a yelp. He didn't have much time to think about it though as he was chasing Drake to the cliff face.

They were only a few steps away from solid land when suddenly, almost like a cartoon, there was nothing under their feet. They were falling, the tree tumbling toward the river. Jayden felt himself falling, but just as abruptly, he stopped, feeling cool, wet foliage in his hands. He had slammed into the cliff and grabbed onto a leafy outcropping.

"Drake?" he called, his voice shaky as he looked up, desperately searching for a better hand hold.

"Give me a minute," Drake grunted from above, expertly leaping from where he dangled up to the edge of the cliff. He hauled himself up, disappearing for a moment before leaning back down, hand extended. "You plan on hanging there all day?" he panted, stretched out on his stomach to reach for Jayden.

"I'd rather not," Jayden replied, settling his feet against the cliff face and reaching up to grab the offered hand. Drake grabbed his forearm and helped him up.

"You really have to stop trying to kill me," Drake sighed, pushing himself to his feet.

"You're the one who decided you needed to cross the unstable, rotting log!" complained Jayden.

As Drake walked away, he looked over his shoulder and raised a brow. "You're still alive, aren't you?"

"Ha ha."

Grinning, Drake headed into the trees. As he walked, he was paying more attention to the ground than anything else. The forest floor was becoming less marshy the farther they walked.

"If anything is out here, it'll be close by," Drake said. "The ground is better for building here."

The two men were quiet for a long while after that, keeping their eyes peeled for any signs of ruins. The greenery was so thick it was hard to make out anything at all. More than once, even with Drake's warnings, Jayden stumbled on hidden rocks, stumps, and vines.

"How can one person be so clumsy?" Drake grumbled, hauling Jayden up after he slipped into an overgrown crevice. "And I _told_ you to watch where you walked. Five separate times."

"Well sorry. I was busy looking for your non-existent ru—ah!" As Jayden walked away from Drake, his boot caught a burrow of some sort and he fell over the side of an incline. Luckily it wasn't too steep or two far to the bottom, and Jayden eventually rolled to a stop at the bottom.

Only a little concerned, Drake half-slid, half-ran down the hill to where Jayden sat, holding his head.

"Six times."

"Smart ass," growled Jayden, glaring at Drake.

Drake laughed as he offered his hand to help Jayden up. "On the bright side though, you've found the ruins." Crossing his arms and leaning his weight on one leg, Drake admired the view before them. If a person didn't know what they were looking for they may not notice the odd protrusions sticking out of the forest floor. The centuries old stone was encased in moss and lichen, trees and various plants growing up from what used to be the floor of someone's dwelling. A few beams of sun filtered through the canopy, dimly illuminating shapes of former walls. Whatever building had been here wasn't very large.

"Doesn't look like much," said Jayden.

"But it's got a great personality," joked Drake, tossing a grin over his shoulder as he walked through an arch that had formerly been a door.

"I believe less and less of your reputation with every word out of your mouth," sighed Jayden.

Drake crouched by one crumbled wall and tore away the moss. "I have a reputation?" he replied, barely interested as he revealed the old stone. This was the first time in a very long time that the stone had been exposed to light and it had a certain luster.

While Drake pulled away the greenery, Jayden wandered around the ruins with his hands in his pockets. He used his boot to brush the greenery off one stone brick that was still mostly intact and saw that it had two deep scratch marks on its face.

"A bear couldn't do this, could it?" he asked, leaning over the remnants of a wall to look at Drake. The man didn't even hear him, thoroughly engrossed with his own wall scratches.

"Care to extend my deadline?" he asked after a moment, glancing up at Jayden.

"What are they?" Jayden asked in return.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't need more time, would I?" Standing up, Drake crossed his arms and looked around at the other bits of wall and the fallen stones on the ground. After a moment, he pulled his journal out and started sketching lines. Each fragment didn't make much sense, but he was sure if he put them together…

"Help me clear away this moss," he said and started ripping it off the other bits of stone.

Admitting to himself that he was a little intrigued, Jayden started tearing plant life off the ruins.

"Well, this is bizarre," Drake said when they exposed the majority of what used to be one wall. "Very interesting, but very wrong."

"What?"

With an expression that was half frown, half-eager, boy-like excitement, Drake pointed out three different portions of scratches they uncovered. "Someone went through a lot of trouble to carve a message in this wall. It's sloppy, like the inscription, but it's Sanskrit. Whoever wrote this, it was not their native language. And the fact that we found it _here_ leads me to believe this was not meant to be read by just anyone."

"What does it say?" Jayden asked, frowning at the foreign markings.

"Not sure, but it shouldn't take me long to piece it together," he replied, walking away from the ruins as he stared down at his journal. He sat down on a hollow log and propped the leather-bound book in his lap.

While Drake worked, Jayden decided to check and see if anything else remained in the ruins. He was rewarded when the glitter of old gold caught his eye. Stooping over, he picked up a necklace. The gold was woven into a braid in the front and an unbelievably thin chain around the back. He decided to ask Drake how much it could be worth.

"Hey, Drake. I found this—," Jayden stopped midsentence when a bullet sliced through the air by his cheek. He instantly dropped to the ground.

"Ah, hell," grumbled Drake, having heard the gunshot. He put his journal away and pulled his own gun. "_I_ don't even know what I'm looking for!" he called as he peeked over the ridge he had been using as a back rest moments before. He returned fire and ducked back down.

"Sorry," muttered Jayden, cringing as another shot zipped past him. "I should have known they would be tracking me."

"We wouldn't have been so easy to spot if it wasn't for your fire-engine head." Drake fired into the forest a few more times and heard someone howl. "C'mon." He was up and moving before Jayden could reply. He kept low as he climbed the incline Jayden had rolled down earlier, moving between the trees silently. They circled around and came up beside one of the men who was shooting at them. The man, standard issue thug-for-hire, was wearing jeans with holes in the knees, a puffy red vest over a grungy off-white long sleeve shirt and all-purpose work boots that had seen better days. He blended into the forest only marginally better than Jayden. Drake was only concerned with two things though; his size and the KAL-7 in his hands.

"Take cover over there," Drake whispered, pressing his back to a tree and returning his 9mm to its holster.

"What are you going to do?" Jayden hissed back.

"I'm gonna ask that nice man if I can borrow his rifle." Without another word, Drake ducked around the tree and ran for the thug. The man noticed a little too late and Drake was already swinging. His fist smashed into the guy's cheek, causing him to stumble a bit. While the thug was off-balance, Drake grabbed the stock of the KAL and shoved it forward, slamming it into the guy's nose. They wrestled with the weapon even though the thug's eyes were a little unfocused and blood poured from his shattered nose. Drake gave the gun a yank and kicked the thug in the crotch at the same time. The guy automatically let go of the gun to clamp his hands over his crotch and Drake took the opportunity to slam the butt of the weapon against the guy's skull. With an incoherent grumble, the man dropped to the ground like a sack of wet sand.

"Ooh, you're going to feel that in the morning," Drake said with a lopsided smirk.

"You fight dirty," Jayden said with a sympathetic wince for the thug.

"You're welcome. This one of the numbskulls working for your brother?"

"Most likely."

"How many does he usually have on-hand?"

"Depends on what he's after."

Drake vaulted over a low ridge. "Give me an estimate."

"Could be as few as two or three, could be as many as twenty. Do you think you could lend me that pistol?"

"So we've got somewhere between two and twenty guys trying to kill us…fantastic."

Jayden held out his hand and quirked his brow.

"You don't need it. Yet. Kids shouldn't play with guns anyway," said Drake, settling down behind a hill and firing into the trees. Half a dozen guns fired back, one of them was a grenade launcher. And a grenade was icing on the cake.

"No one could possibly be this unlucky!" groaned Drake, ducking away from the explosion. He fired back and hoped that six weapons he heard was all there was.


	4. Part Four

"And that's pretty much when Thing One and Thing Two cornered us. I thought it was going good up until that point," Drake said with a shrug, finishing his retelling of events. He kept it bland, leaving out the inscription and the Sanskrit message at the ruins.

"Don't lie to me, Mr. Drake. I know of your exploits and I know my brother would only go to you if this was beyond his skill level," Hayden Risyn said to him, scowling down at him where he and Jayden were on their knees, arms bound behind their backs.

Drake's eyebrows rose in amazement. "I have exploits?"

"Lindsay, if you would?"

The enormous muscle man slugged Drake, knocking him onto his side.

Despite his newly split lip, Drake grinned and was unable to supress a snort of derisive laughter. "Your name is Lindsay? Seriously? What about you, Gunboy? Marion, maybe?"

"Drake, I wouldn't," Jayden warned.

"I would have guessed Bruno or something, but I guess that's why you're so mean."

Lindsay didn't take kindly to being made fun of and he slugged Drake a second time.

"Ow," laughed Drake, his tone sounding a little nervous as he got to his knees again.

Hayden sighed and crossed his arms, his dress shirt pulling tightly across his shoulders and arms. "Percy, please make sure he doesn't kill Mr. Drake before we get what we need."

Drake clearly wanted to make another joke, but hid his grin as he looked around at the temporary camp. Hayden had set up his base in a clearing, thick curtains of foliage on three sides, and a cliff on the other. It was a pretty sweet set up. The twelve well-armed men wandering around would be an issue though.

Hayden pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped sweat off his brow as he scowled at his brother. The man's brown eyes were a little hazy and his hair was plastered to his temples. He looked like he was standing in a tropical forest at the hottest part of the day. He shouldn't have been sweating like that when the temperature was below fifty and dropping.

"Jay, you wouldn't keep something important from your own brother, would you?" the man finally asked, squatting in front of the man.

"We didn't find anything, Hayden," Jayden replied with a cold, hard expression on his face.

Drake cleared his throat, pulling Hayden's attention away from his brother. "I can't help but notice a little tension here."

"And you say _I'm_ trying to kill you," Jayden mumbled.

"You know, Mr. Drake, whatever he's offered you, I can triple it. I think it would be more beneficial for you to work with me," said Hayden as he got back to his feet.

"Would you believe I'm doing this out of the kindness of my heart?"

"Not for a second, Mr. Drake. If you worked for me though, you wouldn't have this professional liar tagging along behind you like the master-less dog he is."

Drake glanced at Jayden in his peripheral vision. He saw that the kid wanted to lunge at his brother and beat him to within an inch of his life if not for the gun pressed against the back of his skull. His shoulders were stuff and while he looked angry, there was something else hiding there as well.

"Now, you say _work with_, but I'm pretty sure you mean_ work for and I'll kill you once you've done what I want_. While it sounds like a spectacular offer, I'm going to have to pass. Thanks, though," he eventually replied, his tone light.

A grin swept across Hayden's features and he chuckled. "Oh, that's just ridiculous. Why would I kill you when there are endless uses for your particular set of talents?" His amusement dissipated quickly and he heaved a sigh. "But if you won't work with me, torture is always an option. I don't know how much pain you can withstand, Mr. Drake, but I think it'll be fun finding out, don't you?"

"Sounds kinky, but not really my thing."

A tight smile curved Hayden's mouth. "As for you, it'll just be fun trying to break what no one else could," he said to his brother. "Lindsay, Percy, lock them up for the night. You can play with them tomorrow."

Drake opened his mouth to say something when pain exploded across the back of his skull and he was knocked on his face. Stars erupted in his vision before it tunnelled, everything getting dark and fuzzy. His name was called, but it sounded far away and under water. He could tell he was going down for the count and he would have a nasty headache when he woke up.

~oOo~

It usually took Drake's mind a few minutes to un-fog after waking up from being pistol-whipped, but right away he noticed two things; he was freezing cold and something was dripping on his left arm. That, and the headache. The headache was bad.

He cracked his eyes open and was somewhat relieved to find it was dark and he didn't have to worry about the sun in his already stinging eyes. He was a little concerned that his wrists were shackled above his head and his shirt and holster were missing.

"I'm afraid to ask, but why is my shirt gone?" he asked, noticing Jayden's moonlit silhouette. He cringed at the croak of his voice.

"I guess they're hoping we'll freeze overnight," Jayden grumbled, rattling his own restraints. "Lindsay was not gentle with you."

A shiver raced up Drake's spine and it had nothing to do with the brisk night air. "Okay, now that I have that disturbing image in my mind, let's change the subject. You were conscious while they chained us up, right?"

Jayden nodded, a few streams of moonlight reflecting off his hair. "We're in a guarded pit off the camp. Lindsay and a couple of other big dudes with M-16s are keeping watch."

Tipping his head back, Drake saw the flicker of a torch. "Sounds like a party."

"You got a plan?"

Drake yanked on his restraints, testing them. There was no give at all. "I'm working on it," he replied, looking back at Jayden. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the low light, he was able to pick out the myriad of scars on the kid's torso. One in particular stood out; a puckered, circular scar that was clearly an old bullet wound that was just below and to the left of his belly button.

Drake was a bit shocked to see just how much Jayden was hiding. Then again, Hayden had said the younger Risyn was a 'professional liar'. "Since we aren't currently being shot at," he said, trying not to let his teeth chatter, "why don't you tell me a story while I try and think of our escape plan."

Jayden hung his head, letting his chin fall against his chest as he sighed. "How am I not surprised. You want answers about Hayden's accusations, right? And the scar has always been a point of interest…mostly with women though."

Drake wasn't sure his glare reached the kid in the darkness. Not that it would have carried much weight if it had since he was sure it looked more like a grimace. "What did Hayden mean about that liar comment?" he asked, his tone flat.

"Just what he said. I lied for a living. That's all in the past though."

"Kid, if you want to keep me employed after we're out of here, I suggest you start telling me the truth. What the hell is going on?" Drake asked, hearing a little too much of Sully in his voice.

"Okay, okay. First of all, I am nowhere near as inept as I've been acting. I have skills, believe it or not. Been putting them to use working for dad. And I really do want that dragon. Getting it from Hayden is way beyond my skill level though, so that's why I asked you, just like he said," explained the redhead.

"There's still something you're leaving out." By now, Drake's entire body was covered in goosebumps, his hands and arms were going to sleep, and the water dripping on his arm was leaving an icy trail down his side and soaking into his jeans.

Jayden huffed and rattled his restraints again. "Not that you'll believe me, but I'm former Special Forces."

"What? You're, like, twelve!" Drake leaned forward as he spoke, trying to see over the lip of the pit.

"Actually, I'm twenty-five," Jayden grumbled.

"I probably would have been more willing to give you a gun if you just said that from the beginning."

"And you would have believed me?"

"…Probably not. Actually I don't really believe you now."

Jayden sighed. "Not surprising. No one ever believes me. I look too young. It's just easier for me to make something up when people ask where I am or what I'm doing. It's basically second nature for me to lie now."

"Well, if you've got skills like you say, maybe you could start pulling your weight and give me a hand?"

"With what?" Jayden sighed. "We're chained up, half-frozen and guarded by big guys with big guns. We aren't exactly in the best position to save ourselves."

"Ever the optimist," said Drake, his teeth chattering.

"Even if you could get out of those shackles, I highly doubt either of us could overpower Lindsay. The amount of blood caked on your face tells me you're conscious due to sheer stubbornness. They've already got your journal, so they really don't need you anymore," said Jayden, leaning against the muddy wall of the pit.

"Even if your brother and his goons can read Sanskrit, they're going to have a hard time piecing those fragments together. Have a little faith, would ya?" Drake took a half step forward, only now noticing his shoes and socks were gone as well and his feet were muddy and numb. Thinking warm thoughts was no longer doing it for him.

"Faith?" Jayden scoffed. "Please. Do _you_ even know what that message was?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. And I might just let you in on it if we're still alive in the morning."

Jayden let out an annoyed grunt and most likely rolled his eyes. Drake couldn't tell for sure in the dark. If the kid's story was true, Drake understood why he lied, but honestly, he liked his personality better before they got crammed into this pit together. Now the brat was just getting on his already frazzled nerves.

"Okay, I think I may be able—," The rest of Drake's sentence got cut off with an explosion and a shower of mud. A rattle of gunfire followed, along with some muffled shouting.

"What the hell is going on?" Jayden asked, trying to lean forward to see. A torch fell into the pit between them and went out in the mud. The air smelled like smoke and gunpowder.

"Good question." Drake watched a grenade fly overhead and felt the pit rumble as it exploded. Someone screamed and tumbled into the pit. "Getting a little crowded in here!" he called.

"We'll get ta ya! Can only work so fast up here, Kid!"

Drake's jaw dropped. "Sully? Oh, you glorious bastard! Wait. We? Who's with you?"

There was no answer, just more gunfire. Another two quick explosions followed, then silence.

"Sully?" Drake called after a few long seconds.

"Keep yer pants on, Kid!" Sully called down as he lowered a rough ladder into the pit. He planted a torch in the mud, casting some light over the two captured men. Sully lowered himself into the pit with Drake and Jayden, only a little careful not to tread on the dead man.

"Don't say it, Sully," Drake warned as the old man raised an eyebrow at him. He knew his friend well enough to know he would make one of two comments. Either he would say something about his state of dress or he would say something about how he was locked up yet again.

"You tryin' to put someone's eye out with those things?" Sully asked with a crooked grin as he reached up to unlock Drake's shackles. Obviously he had acquired the key somewhere.

"Of course you'd go with the half-dressed comment. It's cold, you jackass," Drake said, rubbing feeling back into his hands. There was a scowl on his face, but amusement in his eyes.

"So, who's the kid?" Sully asked, unlocking Jayden's shackles as well.

"Jayden Risyn," the redhead replied.

Sully eyed the kid for a moment. "Are you as big a swindler as your old man?"

"No."

"Yes," Drake said at the same time.

"All right kids, up ya go," Sully said as the men glared at one another.

Drake had enough trouble standing on his icy, numb feet. Climbing the rickety ladder with frozen fingers and feet took him longer than he cared to admit.

"Any time, Nate," Sully grumbled below him.

"I take it this isn't the first time you've saved his ass?" Jayden asked as Drake hoisted himself out of the hole.

Ignoring Sully's laughter, Drake migrated over to the large fire burning in the middle of the camp. It was in the place of Hayden's tent. He wondered in the back of his mind if the man was still alive as he let the heat wash over his frozen skin. Sully and Jayden joined him after a moment.

"Two questions," Drake said.

"Shoot," replied Sully.

"Who's here with you? And do you have any shoes I can wear? I can't feel my feet."

Sully opened his mouth, but a very familiar female voice spoke up behind them. Drake wasn't entirely sure he was happy to hear her.

"I'd ask how you got yourself into this mess, but I don't think I want to know," Elena Fisher sighed, propping a fist on her hip. She held an M32-Hammer in her other hand.

"And now I know where the explosions were coming from," Drake said, eyeing the grenade launcher. "Hello, Elena. Do you have my shoes?"

The blonde smirked. "And your socks and your shirt," she said.

"Why does it sound like this isn't the first time he asked her for his clothes?" Jayden grumbled from beside Sully.

The trio chose not to answer that as Elena led them to a tent that hadn't been caught in the explosions. On top of a crate inside the tent was a pair of beat up sneakers, a pair of scuffed leather boots, a purple tee shirt, a khaki long sleeve shirt and Drake's holster.

"You said there were socks, Elena," Drake said, cocking a brow at her as he pulled his shirt over his head.

"In your shoes."

"Okay, while I am grateful to be out of there and have my clothes back, am I the only one remotely curious about how you found us?" Jayden asked with wide eyes and arms spread.

Drake leaned against the crate and started to wipe mud off his feet. "No, no. I'm curious too. Was just a little more concerned about warming up," he replied, his teeth still chattering.

"Hate to interrupt boys, but can we get out of here before they come back?" Elena raised her eyebrows at them as they stood around inside the tent. She flicked a strand of hair off her face as she looked at them.

"Oh, muddy feet in socks are really gross," Drake mumbled as they headed out of the tent. "I don't suppose either of you saw my journal lying around before you blew the place up?"

"Nah, Kid. It's probably long gone by now," said Sully, handing Drake a pistol and a rifle.

"I thought you said it wouldn't matter if they had it," Jayden said as he plucked as weapon off a dead man.

Drake shook his head. "It doesn't, but I still want it back."

"Well, if we run into my brother again, I'll be sure to ask for it."

"Another Risyn? What have you gotten yourself mixed up in this time, Nate?" Sully asked, clapping his friend on the back as he walked past him.

"You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine," answered Drake, glancing back at the nice warm fire they were leaving behind. He sighed and jogged to catch up with the others. "We need to go back to those ruins."

Jayden looked at him, eyes wide. "Are you nuts? Hayden will be looking for us, and that's one of the first places he'll check."

"That may be, but we know what we're doing. He doesn't," replied Drake, waggling his finger in Jayden's direction.

Elena held up a hand as she turned to face Drake, walking backwards as she spoke to him. "Care to fill in the rest of the class? I have no idea why I'm here."

"I think Sully should tell us about this daring rescue first," Drake said to his friend, smirking.

"I dunno, Kid. Maybe you should go first. Talking might get some circulation back into your lips—they're blue," replied Sully.

"Being as how I am out of the loop on both accounts, I don't really care who goes first," Jayden grumbled as he trailed along behind them.

"No offense, but who are you, anyway?" Elena asked him, falling into step with him as Drake and Sully continued to bicker.

Jayden offered his hand and a charming grin. "Jayden Risyn. Pleasure to meet you."

"Elena Fisher," she replied, shaking his hand.

"So, I take it you and Drake know one another?"

Elena nodded, a chunk of hair falling across her face. "Yeah, we met on another one of his little outings. Never really wanted to do it again, but here I am," she replied with a sweep of her arms. "It's pretty hard to say no when Victor Sullivan asks for help," she added with a chuckle.

"He's got a lot of charm for an old guy," Drake teased.

"Thanks, Nate."

"All right Sully, time to spill it. How did you find us?" Drake now asked, his tone serious again.

"Well, I already kind of had an idea where you were headed since you told me. It didn't take a whole lot of effort to track down where in Turkey you were headed. I decided I'd meet up with you at your hotel because I changed my mind about helping out with your little treasure hunt."

"Did you rack up another big debt playing poker and decide to flee the country?" Drake asked,

Sully glared at his friend. "I couldn't reach you on your phone, so I poked around and found out you were heading into the rainforest in Georgia."

"Where did you find that out?" Jayden asked.

"A friend."

Jayden rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, I didn't think you'd be taking the main roads, and I was right. I found your Rover. There will be no driving out of here in that thing."

"Stuck?"

"Incinerated."

Drake's eyebrows shot up.

"And when I heard the gunshots, I didn't need to see you to know you were involved somehow. I did a little snooping and saw that you were captured, so I called Elena."

Drake frowned. "I thought you were doing a story in South Africa," he said, looking over at the blonde.

"Three months ago. I was actually just up north working on a new story," clarified Elena.

Suddenly Jayden perked up. "I thought I recognized you! I used to watch your show all the time!"

Smiling, Elena was about to reply when Drake held up his hand. "Wait a second. I've asked for your help before and you always refused."

"I was closer than anyone else," Elena answered. "And I wasn't about to let Sully attempt this himself, Nate." She looked annoyed and concerned all at once. "Believe me; I'd rather not be here holding a grenade launcher. If you could stop getting in trouble with people who want to kill you, it would make everyone's lives a lot easier!"

"Okay Kids, let's keep the shouting to a minimum, shall we? I'd like to get out of here alive if you don't mind." Sully gave them a tight smile, looking at them both in turn.

"Geez, and you thought the tension between me and my brother was bad. Yikes." Jayden grimaced, stepping past the pair who stopped walking to argue. He could feel Drake's glare on his back and shrugged it off.

"I am inclined to take your brother up on his offer just to get rid of you, Jayden," Drake grumbled as they started moving again.

"Well, Nate? Care to share your half of the story yet? Sounds like a lot happened," Sully chimed in, stepping between the men.

Drake sighed, inwardly cringing every time he stepped down. Mud inside socks was not pleasant. He started off by relaying the story of the cup itself for Elena's benefit and then told them about the inscription.

"What the hell does that mean? Sully asked, leading the way through the trees.

"I assume there is a key of some sort being guarded by a, uh, an I don't know what, but maybe underground. I'm also assuming underground because of the message we found at the ruins which we are heading away from, by the way Sully," Drake explained.

"We can circle back in a bit. So what did the message say?"

"It waits beneath the world," Drake answered, arms wide.

"Doesn't _that_ sound like fun," muttered Elena, rolling her eyes. "So, both of these messages were written in Sanskrit? Wasn't Jamshid Persian?"

Drake nodded.

"Maybe the bowl got into someone else's hands after Jamshid was murdered," Jayden suggested. He was becoming more interested now. Their enthusiasm was infectious.

"I don't think so. It pretty much disappeared after that. I mean, there is a connection to the Holy Grail, but I think Jamshid hid it before he died," Drake replied, more caught up in the mystery than his argument with Jayden. "It was found, like everything tends to be over time, and now we're going to solve the mystery." He finished speaking with a cheeky grin lighting up his features.

"As exciting as that sounds Nate, how do you expect to find whatever it is you're looking for?" Elena questioned, making a gesture with her free hand. "Beneath the Earth is kind of vague."

"She's got a point, Kid," Sully agreed.

"Here's a great starting point, though. Loads of places we can start looking in this forest," Drake answered.

"It could take a lot longer than you're willing to commit to go through every cave and underground tunnel in this area. And what's to say the 'trees far from home' are these trees?" Jayden asked, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers.

"A gut feeling, I guess. Plus, it's the best explanation I can think of," said Drake. "There's got to b—!" Drake's voice disappeared as he fell into a deceptively solid-looking patch of marsh. The grassy layer disguising the muddy water below broke as he stepped on it, pulling him in with barely a splash.

"Nate!" yelled both Elena and Sully, worried but at the same time afraid to move.


	5. Part Five

"He can swim, can't he?" Jayden asked, looking down at the oddly still surface of the marsh.

"Yeah, but he should have come up by now," replied Elena, hiding the panic in her voice as her eyes darted back and forth looking for any sign of Drake.

"It can't be that deep, can it?" added Sully.

"You'd be surprised. Some of these marshes are incredibly deep." Jayden poked at the ground with his foot, trying to find the edge of the water.

"Dammit, Nate," growled Sully, looking around for something to use as a rope as he contemplated going in after his friend.

"Dammit what?"

Elena, Sully and Jayden all turned at the sound of the voice. A myriad of emotions crossed their faces when they saw Nathan Drake, dripping wet, covered from head to foot in mud and grinning from ear to ear.

"I don't know whether to hug you or kill you!" Elena gasped, eyeing the man.

"Oh c'mon! You guys didn't really think a mud puddle would kill me, did you?" Drake asked, pushing his dripping hair off his forehead.

"That's some mud puddle, Kid. Where the hell were you?"

"Why don't you see for yourselves?"

"We don't have to go swimming, do we? 'Cause I only brought the one outfit," said Sully, raising an eyebrow at Drake.

"No, there's an easy way," laughed Drake, turning away from the group. He led them through the trees, stopping after a short walk. "This would have been so easy to miss," he said, crouching down and brushing aside rotting foliage on the ground.

"What are you doing?" Jayden asked with a scowl.

"Just gimme a second and you'll find out," Drake answered without looking over his shoulder. "Here!" Grabbing something on the ground, he gave it a yank. A large patch of ground opened like a hatch, the leaves and plant life perfectly disguising the door.

"Whoa." Jayden had to admit he was impressed.

Drake smirked at them before leading them down the stone staircase. "I have no clue what's down here beyond the path from the stairs to the marsh. Would have checked it out, but I figured you might want to see this too," he said, stopping when they reached the bottom. An unnaturally smooth, arched stone hallway stretched out before them, curving off to the right. The floor was a combination of rock and earth, flattened and well packed from foot traffic. Plants had begun to reclaim the tunnel even though there was no sunlight to speak of down here. When Drake came through originally, he had found the stairs by feeling his way along the wall.

"The fact that you didn't check it out had nothing to do with you having no light," Elena teased, taking a lighter from her pocket and flicking it open.

"Okay, that _may_ have been one reason," Drake replied.

Elena smirked at him, pulling an old torch from the wall and lighting the rag on the end. She handed it over to Drake and slipped her lighter back into her pocket.

"Much better!" Drake held the torch out before him and started down the corridor. His shoes squelched with each step.

"I'd say this was man-made, but I don't think they had the ability to do work like this when the hall was constructed," Jayden observed, sliding his hand along the cold, smooth stone.

"And it's too uniform for erosion," added Elena.

"While the walls are interesting, I think _this_ is way more noteworthy," Drake said, coming to a stop about halfway between the stairs and the marsh. The wall opened up into an enormous circular room with a high, flat ceiling. The walls were carved with intricate designs of swirls and soft lines. Not an inch of space remained for the carvings. The floor, which was three steps down from where they currently stood crowded into the arched doorway, was inlaid with fiery ruby chips, onyx and other precious stones in a lion motif. Around the edges of the room were raised platforms that were cause for investigation.

"Wow. It's beautiful," whispered Elena, her voice carrying in the large room despite her quiet tone.

"It'll look better if we can light those candles," replied Drake, looking up at the old chandelier hanging from the ceiling. "Actually, I think we might get a better perspective on the room with some light."

"How are you gonna manage that, Kid?" Sully asked, admiring the stones in the floor.

Drake held the torch over his head, illuminating the wall. "I think I can climb this."

"Without safety gear?" Jayden asked, stooping over to look at one of the platforms. It had a depression in the center, like it used to hold something.

Sully and Drake scoffed at Jayden.

"He's good at this sort of thing. I think he's part monkey," said Elena.

"Ooh, ooh," replied Drake, handing off the torch. He nicked Elena's lighter from her pocket and gave her a grin as he reached up and hooked his fingers over a protruding curve on the wall. Placing one foot on another round carving, he pushed off of the ground and started his ascent. The rounded edges and drying mud that caked him from head to foot were making progress slow, but at least no one was shooting at him. Yet.

"I wonder what's supposed to go on these pedestals," Sully said, his gruff voice echoing.

Drake chanced a look over his shoulder at the halfway point. He couldn't see much because the light from a single torch didn't exactly cover a huge area.

"Okay," he mumbled to himself, looking up into the darkness. He needed to climb up far enough that he could jump across to the length of chain that dangled uselessly beside the enormous chandelier. That was still about ten feet up and a good ten or eleven feet out. Judging the distance was going to be a challenge in the nearly pitch-black room. He was already having trouble finding hand and foot holds in the gloom.

With a tenuous grip on a severely curved indentation and his feet barely touching a protrusion, he slid one hand out across the wall, searching for another hold. As he did so, he could feel the stone under his foot starting to give way, small pieces breaking off under his sneakers.

"C'mon," he hissed, feeling shallow, unusable ruts and severely sloped and angled ledges under his fingers. His heart was beating loud and fast in his ears as his hand desperately searched for a new hold. The barely-there stone under his foot gave off a loud, echoing crack a split second before it broke away, falling to the floor fifteen feet below.

"Crap! Crapcrapcrap!" Drake grabbed the first thing his fingers touched before his other hand slipped and he plunged to the floor. He wrapped his hand around a circular knob that was about as big around as a beer bottle.

"You okay, Nate?" Sully called up to him.

"Yeah," Nate laughed nervously. "Yeah, I'm good." His dangling legs bumped against the wall, all his weight supported by his arms. His voice was breathy and shaky, but he told himself it was exertion and not adrenaline.

"Be careful!" Elena called up next.

"I'm good!" he repeated. "Part monkey, remember?" he said, finding a new protrusion to perch his feet on. Once he was a little surer of his grip and footing, he continued upward.

"Whoever carved this must have had a _really_ tall ladder," he breathed, reaching up for another hold. He jammed the toe of his shoe into a groove and stretched up as far as he could without actually jumping. He found a nice solid furrow in the wall and hooked his fingers into it.

"Okay…okay," he exhaled, glancing over his shoulder. He could barely make out the chain behind him, but there was just enough ambient light to illuminate the curve of one or two links. The chandelier beyond was more clearly defined. Drake stretched one arm out, leaning away from the wall. From what he could tell, the chair was still a ways out. It would be a tough jump, but he had made much more difficult ones in the past.

"Here goes nothin'." Bending his knees to get a good push off, Drake took a few steadying breaths. With as much force as he could muster, he pushed himself off the wall with a grunt of effort. As soon as his feet left the wall, he straightened himself out so he was aligned with the chain. His arms pin wheeled as he sailed through the air, headed toward the chain, but when he started to plummet, he realized he misjudged the distance. Stretching his arms out, he snagged the chain with one hand wrapped around the bottom three links. Swinging wildly by one arm, he reached up with his other hand and started pulling himself up, hand over hand.

"That was too close…" he said to himself, breathing heavily.

"How you doing, Kid? We're hearing a lot of noise up there," Sully called, peering up into the darkness overhead.

"I'm getting there," Drake replied, clutching the chain in slick hands. The distance from the chain to the chandelier was roughly the same distance as it had been from the wall to the chain, but this time he could swing and cover most of the distance.

"Well hurry it up, would ya?"

Drake glanced down at the others far below him, all looking up into the darkness. "Would you rather do this?" he called back as he starts swinging on the chain, working up some momentum.

"I think I'm good down here."

"Then shut it and let me do this!" Drake had a good swing going now and was just waiting for the right moment to let go of the chain. He rode the chain the full distance back and forth two or three times and at the highest point of the upward swing, he let go. Kicking his legs and swinging his arms, Drake almost felt like he was running on air. The moment was brief, however, and he hit the target with a noisy clatter.

The chandelier itself was constructed rather simply compared to the elegance of the rest of the chamber. Two hoops, one larger than the other, were strung together with six-foot lengths of chain and rods for extra support. In the center was a suspended platform that held six large candles, the wax adhering each one to the surface. Around the bottom hoop were smaller versions of this platform, each one holding another candle. The entire fixture was probably about seven feet high and had a diameter of roughly twelve feet. The entire thing was gold plated and affixed to the ceiling by a hefty chain.

Holding on to the top hoop and standing on the bottom one, Drake reached into his soggy pocket with one hand and pulled out Elena's lighter. He slid his hand down one of the chains and leaned out toward the middle while flicking the lighter open. He lit the wick of one candle with some difficulty, but the years of dust and cobwebs helped the fire catch. He did the same with the remaining candles around the bottom hoop, being careful to avoid accidentally catching his pant legs on fire. Once he was done lighting all the candles, he put the lighter back into his pocket and looked down at the mosaic on the ground.

"Oh my god," Jayden said on an exhale.

"You should see it from up here," Drake called down, admiring the design. The lion's mane looked like fire, the way the red stones reflected the candle light. He had seen a lot of amazing things in his travels, but this was beyond stunning. The lion itself was mainly crafted from rubies and what almost looked like white sapphires with some onyx as outlines and accents. The eyes appeared to be diamond and the remainder was a myriad of other colored stones.

"You coming down or are you going to stay up there all day and admire the art?" Elena yelled up to him, craning her neck to look at him.

"Getting down isn't going to be—sonofa bitch!"

"What?"

"The chain on this side is still attached to the light and the wall!" Drake sighed as he carefully made his way around to the opposite side of the chandelier. He ignored the chuckle from Sully down below and grabbed onto the chain. Hooking one leg over the chain, then the other, Drake inched his way down the length toward the wall. Once he reached the wall, he eased his legs down and dangled from his arms briefly before propping his toes against the carvings. He climbed down the remaining section of chain that sat against the wall, but that only got him so far. To climb the rest of the way, he once again had to rely on the carvings. This side of the wall seemed to mirror the other side, so he was able to find at least a few decent grooves and ledges.

Drake was breathing harder than he cared to admit when he finally reached the ground and the others were giving him odd looks.

"What?" he breathed flexing his cramped fingers.

"Wanna sit down for a minute? Take a breather?" Jayden asked, crossing his arms.

"What? No, I'm fine," Drake answered, narrowing his eyes at the man.

"You're breathing pretty heavy, Kid," Sully said.

Drake's eyes slid toward Sully and then he turned his head to look at his friend. "Seriously? How 'bout you do that climb and tell me you aren't a little winded," he grumbled. "Hey Elena, come here for a second."

Elena looked up from the carving she was admiring and cross the room to where Drake was standing. "Yeah?"

"Does this look like it could move to you?" Drake asked, tipping his head as he looked at one of the raised platforms. The top of this platform was flat, unlike the others, and it seemed to sit off the floor ever-so-slightly.

Elena crouched in front of the platform and put her hand on the front. She gave it a gentle shove. Nothing happened, so she put a bit more weight behind it. "I don't think this is going anywhere without some help," she said, standing up again.

Nodding, Drake looked around the room. Every other platform had an indentation on top. "Maybe if we find whatever goes on the other ones, this one will open for us."

"Seriously?" Jayden asked, voice flat. "Whatever those things are, they could have been destroyed centuries ago. How do you plan on finding them when you don't even know what they are?"

Drake shrugged. "Luck? It's gotten us this far."

Jayden rolled his eyes. "Well, unless you can get that thing to open, there isn't anything in here. We should go."

"There could be more down here," Elena said, glancing from Jayden to Drake. "Wouldn't hurt to look."

"Exactly! What's the rush, Jayden?" Drake said with a brief smirk.

"I just have no desire to run into my brother again today."

"I don't think it's your brother you're worried about. It's his cronies, right?" Drake said, raising an eyebrow at Jayden.

"If only," the redhead sighed. "Hayden is a sadistic nut case."

"Nate is pretty familiar with those," Elena muttered as she turned away from them.

"What's the plan, Kid?" Sully asked, stepping up beside Jayden. "It's your call."

Jayden gave Sully a sideways glance. "Technically it's mine, since I'm funding this little adventure."

Sully ignored him and kept his gaze locked on Drake.

"We're already here. Let's check it out," Drake answered with a smirk in Jayden's direction.

Jayden let out a long, heavy sigh. "Fine."

Clapping Jayden on the shoulder, Drake smiled at him as he headed toward the door. Sully and Elena followed, leaving Jayden to bring up the rear.

"And we're walking," joked Drake, taking the torch. He held it above his head to illuminate their path. The smooth hall curved back toward the marsh and the path Drake had originally taken came into view. Past that, curling back around and sloping downward was another passage. While smooth like the rest of the corridor, this one was showing its age. Cracks had started to form, letting moisture seep into the space. Puddles of stagnant water sat in random places along the floor, feeding the smattering of odd, puffy red flowers creeping up the walls and over the ceiling.

"What are these?" Elena asked, leaning close to get a good look at the flora.

"Nothing I've ever seen before," Sully replied.

"Probably an unidentified species, if not genus," added Jayden, looking both intrigued and impatient at the same time.

"I'm all about stopping to smell the roses, but there's still a lot of hallway here," Drake said, urging them onward. The group continued heading steadily downward in a big, curving trail. The path was like a spiral staircase that had been seriously stretched out of shape.

"This is a lot of walking for not covering a lot of distance," Jayden muttered, trudging along behind the others.

"Y'know, for a guy who claims to have been former SpecOps, you complain a lot," Drake said, subtly stepping aside as an enormous spider scurried past him.

"That was my job, not my personality," Jayden grumbled, shaking his head.

Drake rolled his eyes. "You're also no fun."

"Sorry for being annoyed that I'm spending money on this wild goose chase."

"You still think this is a waste of time even after what we've found? Your brother clearly believes there's something worth looking for or he wouldn't be out here with a bunch of mercenaries." Drake couldn't believe Jayden's skepticism.

"Not a waste of time, exactly. I'm just having a hard time believing there's something worthwhile at the end of this," the redhead answered honestly.

"Well, we'll just have to see, won't we? There's an opening at the end of this straight stretch." Drake fought the urge to jog to the end of the pathway. When they reached the arched opening, all four of them crowded in as Drake extended his arm to cast light on the room.

"Holy crap," all four of them said in unison.


	6. Part Six

Drake's light didn't stretch very far, but it certainly went far enough to give him and the others a rough idea of the magnitude of the room they were about to head into. Equidistance from the door to the left and right, the light reflected off masses of white stone. Drake was almost certain he could see the shape of a tow and a claw, probably an entire paw stretching into the darkness.

"Please tell me those aren't giant stone feet," Jayden muttered, his voice echoing in the chamber.

"Pretty sure those are giant stone feet," Drake answered as he stepped over the threshold into the new room. To his left there was a torch fastened to the wall. He touched his own to the one on the wall, casting a little more light, but not enough to illuminate the gargantuan statues.

"Is there another torch on the wall over there?" Drake asked, turning back toward the doorway.

"Yeah, toss me yours, Kid."

Drake tossed his torch to sully, watching the flame arch through the darkness toward his friend. The man grabbed the torch out of the air and touched it to the wall mounted one in the same movement. As soon as the flame ignited the new torch, it was as though someone flipped a switch. The flame seemed to come alive, hopping playfully along the wall, lighting sconces all away around the perimeter of the chamber—and it was a _big_ chamber. Once the sconces were burning, a new row began to ignite higher up the walls. Drake could now see what the giant stone feet were attached to and he wasn't entirely sure he liked the recurring theme he was seeing here.

"Holy crap," he breathed again. Beside him, Jayden stared open-mouthed, Elena was wide-eyed and Sully looked amazed.

"Who could hide something like this?" Jayden almost demanded.

"Damn good question," Sully replied.

Drake craned his neck to look up at the white stone statues that depicted lions lounging lazily. Both creatures were about three quarters the size of the Sphinx, had shiny red eyes that stared across the room to the other in a subtle challenge. They were foreboding, frightening, casting heavy shadows in the firelight. Drake half expected them to come to life.

"What are these made from?" Elena asked, putting her hand against the cool stone.

"Whatever it is, it has to come in some damn big blocks. These look like single, solid pieces," said Sully.

Jayden's jaw dropped as he looked at the others. "Are you freakin' kidding me? Who _cares_ what they are made of? I think it's a little more important to know how they hell they got here, how something like this could be hidden for so long? Why are they here?" his voice echoed, reverberating back to them in a distorted parroting of his words. The flames lighting the room seemed to sense his annoyance, wavering back and forth on the sconces.

Sighing through his nose, Drake turned on his heel to face Jayden. He was scowling. "You are so damn impatient. You can't even take thirty seconds observe your surroundings. Do you have any curiosity at all?" Shaking his head, Drake rolled his eyes. "We're here to find out the answers to those lost questions. And to get the treasure," he admitted when Sully gave him a look. "If you just look around a bit, a lot of those answers tend to pop up. At least they have in my experience."

"Occasionally we have to do some digging," added Elena.

"Sometimes literally," Sully replied.

Jayden scrubbed one hand through his fiery red hair. "This probably would have been less of a mess had I gone by myself."

"Probably. But it probably would have ended for you quite a while ago," said Drake, turning away to continue exploring.

Jayden reluctantly admitted to himself that Drake was right. Sure, he used to be Special Forces, but when it came to his brother and his minions, Jayden was always on the losing side. He hadn't exactly passed his exams for the Special Forces with flying colors, but he could still use a gun and he could still fight. But he couldn't seem to hold his tongue when he had an opinion, which led to a dishonorable discharge after three missions. After that he started working for his dad, but his recoveries were simple. It usually involved paying someone off, or sneaking into someone's house and stealing an item back. It never really involved brute strength, which is what his brother excelled at. He still had no idea why his brother wanted some of these items so badly. He didn't exactly understand Drake's enthusiasm either. This entire job was going over his head. All he wanted was his grandfather's dragon.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare at the floor, or are you going to help us check this place out?" Elena asked him, interrupting his train of thought.

Jayden's head snapped up and he gave the blonde woman a sheepish smile. "Sorry."

Elena shrugged and moved away, following Drake into the middle of the comically large chamber. Jayden tagged along, a few paces behind. He had to admit, the place was stunning, if not a bit confusing. The two lion statues were obviously the focal point of the room. They certainly made a statement, their size and construction alone was mind boggling. But if you could pull your eyes away from them, the stone work pattern in the floor was quite lovely. There was a circular pattern; the stones getting bigger the farther from the center they became, each circle was a different shade of natural stone. The walls weren't as detailed as the last chamber, but the more subtle swirls were much easier on the eyes, trying not to overwhelm the room.

"There's an opening in the floor over here, Nate," Sully called from where he stood between the massive paws of one lion.

Drake gave his friend a small nod as he jogged across to the other lion. "Here too. Is there a grate on that one?"

Sully glanced down. "Yup."

"With an enormous, rusty padlock on it?"

"Yup. So, something is locked up down there." Sully scowled down at the grate.

"Most likely," Drake replied, voice flat.

"Wouldn't anything down there be dead by now?" Jayden asked, glancing across the space from one man to the other.

"We can hope," Drake answered, still staring down at the locked grate.

"But you're not that lucky, are you?" Jayden asked with a sigh.

"Not by a long shot."

Jayden groaned, scrubbing one hand over his face.

"Doesn't look like there's anything else here besides the statues," Elena said, hefting the grenade launcher she was still carting around. "There may be a mechanism to raise this part of the floor," she added, indicating one of the outer circles. It was about three inches wide and raised slightly.

"Huh." Drake walked away from the grated hole in the floor to check out the raised circle. Letting his arms dangle at his sides, he scuffed his boot over the raised section. It wasn't even high enough to trip over, but it was uniformly raised around the room. "If this bit of floor comes up…I think this may have been an arena of sorts."

"Seriously?" Jayden grumbled.

"Maybe that other room was a trophy room or something." Elena suggested.

"Makes sense. But where did the trophies go?" Sully glanced around the room hefting his rifle.

"Maybe no one ever won against whatever's locked up under here," Jayden offered figuring he may as well contribute something to this conversation or they would just keep ignoring him.

"There's optimism," Drake grumbled. "We need to go down there either way. What do we have for weapons?" He pulled his pilfered pistol out of his holster and ejected the clip into his hand. "I've got eight rounds."

"Two grenades left," said Elena.

"Half a mag in the AK, plus two extras and whatever I've got left in my pistol," Sully added.

"I've got eighteen rounds left for the M16."

Drake nodded. "Not great, but it could be worse."

"You really expect to have to kill something down there, don't you?" Jayden asked, thinking it had been a joke.

Glancing at the redhead, Drake shrugged. "You never know what types of things you'll find in these places."

Shaking his head, Jayden followed Drake to where Sully was standing. The four of them looked down at the ancient, rust riddled grate. The lock would probably crumble under one good stomp. Jayden was tired of waiting around. He would indulge Drake's little side quest, get his dragon and go home. Lifting his foot, he drove his heel down onto the lock. It disintegrated under the blow. "After you," he said to Drake.

Bending down, Drake wrapped his hand around one of the bars and lifted the grate. He grunted under the weight, but it was almost drowned out by the pained squeal of the rusty hinges. He lifted it upright and let go so it fell the rest of the way open, hitting the floor with an echoing clang.

"Sully, the torch." Drake held out his hand and the older man passed over the light. Now that they were standing here, Drake could really smell the dust and decay, but he didn't let that stop him. He led the way down the rough decline, the light from the statue chamber at their backs, casting heavy shadows before them. Their single torch barely bit into the darkness of the dank tunnel.

"There, uh, seems to be a lot of animal bones on the floor," Jayden observed, his voice soft.

"Was probably dinner at some point," replied Drake, keeping his eyes ahead. He heard the redhead groan quietly behind him and that amused Drake somewhat. He was tired of the man's constant whining and would really like to leave Jayden somewhere while he, Sully and Elena finished this one.

"That is not a good smell," Sully commented as they got deeper into whatever animal burrow this was.

"It wasn't me," quipped Drake, wrinkling his up his nose. The smell was like a kennel that hadn't been cleaned in a century. Rotting meat, urine, feces, wet dog and a few other not-so-pleasant odors. And it was warm.

"Those smells seem a little too fresh for there not to be something living down here," Elena said, her voice thick.

Drake had to agree, but only because he could hear the slow, steady breathing of a very large creature not too far ahead. The path circled in on itself, so he couldn't see the animal or its den, but he knew it was there. He held up his hand as he stopped so no one would run into him. They all stood still, listening. The breathing got a bit closer, a low growl accompanying the sound along with the shuffle of feet on dirt.

"Crap," breathed Drake. They really needed to see whatever was being kept down here, but he didn't particularly feel like facing off against a gigantic monster today. Or any day for that matter.

"Are we going to take on whatever's back there, Kid?" Sully asked, giving Drake a sideways glance.

"I think we kind of have to," Drake answered, raising his pistol. The shuffling of feet on dirt continued, but the closer the beast got, they could feel the ground rumble under their feet. Instinctively, the group started to back up.

"At least one of us is going to die before the day is out. You do realize this, right?" Jayden asked as he aimed into the darkness with his M16.

Drake shrugged one shoulder, the flame of the touch bouncing. "Yeah, probably." His voice was disturbingly steady.

"You seem fine with this."

"No, not really."

The grumble got louder and louder until finally the monster rounded the corner. Drake found himself face to face with a massive, muscular albino lion. He looked young and sleek, his mane framing a face free of any battle scars. He looked groomed, like someone's pet.

"The lion décor makes so much more sense now," Drake mumbled under his breath. The words were barely out of his mouth before the creature charged at them.


	7. Part Seven

As one, the team turned and sprinted back the way they came. Drake fired over his shoulder, hoping to slow the lion down some. All if did was deafen him. The monstrous lion roared, the sound rattling Drake's bones. The thing was either toying with them, or it was ill because it certainly wasn't chasing them at full speed. If it had been, whoever was at the back would have been lunch mean by now.

The tunnel felt a hundred times longer than it was with the lion on their heels. Even though they were running for their lives, Drake still slowed down to let Sully and Elena pass him. If any of them were getting eaten, he wouldn't let it happen to his friends.

He fired again, his bullet scoring a direct hit to the beast's right leg, smattering its pristine white fur with red. The animal howled, stumbling and tripping over its wounded paw. But it kept coming. Drake could feel hot breath on his back, could smell the blood and meat of its last meal. If he wasn't so concerned about keeping them alive, he may have commented on the stench.

"There's the opening!" Jayden shouted, managing a fresh burst of speed.

Drake put his hand to Elena's back, silently encouraging her to move faster. He had no idea what they would do once they were out of the pit, but he could think on the fly.

Behind him, the lion roared again, the sound right on Drake's heels. He didn't want to chance looking over his shoulder and tripping over his own feet in the process, but he could have sworn he felt drops of saliva hitting his neck now. The thing was getting closer, even with its wounded leg.

As they hit the incline, the lion swiped one massive paw at Drake, its claws mostly catching his clothes. He didn't have time to stop and see how badly it got him.

The four of them erupted through the formerly grated opening with every intention of heading for the door, except their path was blocked. A second lion stood in their path.

Drake was last out of the tunnel, but he didn't dare stop dead like Jayden had. He veered off to the left, calling out to the others. "The statues!" It was just their luck that the other tunnel also housed a living albino lion. It must have heard the other one howl and broke free of its cage. They were now faced with two creatures that shouldn't even exist in the first place, let alone still be alive.

He really hoped the other three got his drift as he ran in a wide arc around the room toward the rear of one lion statue. They needed to get out of reach of the beasts, and the only way to do that was to climb. If they could get up high enough, they could kill the lions without any more trouble.

Both of the lions roared, their booming voices echoing through the chamber. It sounded like there were dozens of lions in the room. Many different voices, different pitches and timbres and they seemed to carry on too long after the lions fell silent. No, they didn't _seem_ to, they _did_.

"Hurry and get your asses to higher ground!" Drake shouted, hoisting himself up onto the tail of one statue. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see more white animals emerging from the tunnel. He had never in is life been happier to be able to climb almost anything. Sully, Elena and Jayden didn't quite share his skill set, however.

Jayden let out a yelp as one animal rushed past him and another swiped at his heels, missing by a hair's breadth. He tried to run in an arch toward the opposite statue, but three of the new lions—females, Drake noticed—were stalking him. The man let out a burst of fire from his rifle, downing one female. Another was heading toward him, muscles taught, ready to spring.

Drake half-watched as he climbed, but stopped short when what looked like a movie scene unfolded on the ground below. One lioness was primed to pounce and Jayden noticed, appearing to shift his own movements as well. If Drake had blinked, he would have missed the only thing Jayden had done to date to redeem his bad attitude. Just as the lioness sprang, he powerful muscles propelling her forward, Jayden bent backward. The redhead flattened himself to the ground, knees bent, with his heels under his butt. He slid on the ground under the lioness' belly, her fur briefly brushing his face. The oversized cat's paws hit the ground as Jayden straightened his legs and kept running. It was so fluid and perfect that Drake found himself stunned, mouth agape. He was even more surprised when the man practically ran up the paw and leg of the statue closest him.

Jayden was more or less home free. Elena and Sully were still playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie with the two male lions and remaining lionesses.

"Jayden!" Drake called across the room waving his arm as he tried to catch the redhead's attention. He caught the man's eye and shouted across the room for him to start picking the cats off. They needed to narrow the odds. It was amazing they were all still alive as it was. Elena and Sully couldn't last much longer at this rate, and they couldn't seem to get any closer to the statue without one or more of the lions intercepting them. All this running, it was clear they were getting tired. The lions were still toying with them, like a house cat does a mouse. Drake wasn't sure how they were so healthy, so spry after who knew how many years being locked up underground in cramped quarters. Albino lions didn't even exist, so these creatures either evolved this way. So they were some sort of mystical monster put here by Jamshid.

Drake took aim at the large male lion he had already put a bullet in and squeezed the trigger. And missed. But it spooked the cats away from Elena and Sully briefly. Even though it gave them some time, the missed shot seemed like a waste of their precious little ammo.

Across the way, Jayden had climbed up onto the opposite statue's head and was taking careful aim with his M16. His slow breathing was obvious even to Drake as far away as he was. The former Special Forces officer tracked a lioness that was getting too close to Elena. He was extremely focused when he squeezed the trigger. On the ground below, almost instantaneously, the side of the lioness' head exploded in a shower of blood.

Drake cringed. He really hated having to kill these beautiful animals, but he wasn't going to die in their place.

Jayden fired off another shot and killed another female. The boom of the singular shots made Drake's bones vibrate. Each time Jayden pulled the trigger, another lioness crumpled to the floor. The numbers were dwindling quickly thanks to Jayden's shooting skills. Elena was halfway up the same statue as the redhead now. Drake noticed her right pant leg was ribbons.

That just left Sully.

And the three lions stalking him.

Drake aimed his pistol, following the wounded with the sights for a few seconds before pulling the trigger. The round sliced through the lion's flank. The beast roared, throwing his head back and baring his perfect white fangs. Sully fired blindly over his shoulder, spraying bullets at the predator's paws. The other male took a couple rounds in its front paws and stumbled forward into the last remaining lioness. The two beasts went down in a flurry of fur, claws and noise as they snarled and slashed at each other.

"C'mon Sully!" Drake called down to his friend. "Take your chance while they're distracted."

"I'm tryin', Kid!" Sully called back.

"Well try harder!"

Another shot resounded through the chamber. The M16 round exploded through the lion's skull, spraying Sully's shirt with hot blood. The beast crumpled like a sack of potatoes but Sully didn't waste time looking at the lion. He bolted to the closest statue while the other two lions were fighting each other. Now Jayden, Sully and Elena were on the opposite side of the room from Drake and they were the ones who had to take out the two remaining lions. Elena had dropped her M32-Hammer at some point, but beside her Sully and Jayden levelled their rifles.

Drake didn't want to see the two remaining albino lions—a male and female—be wiped off the face of the Earth, so he started climbing back down before the two men pulled their triggers.

Carefully stepping around the pools of blood seeping from the corpses, Drake circled around to the middle of the room to wait for the others. He crossed his arms and watched Sully, Elena and Jayden descend the lion statue.

"That was impressive shooting," Drake said to Jayden.

"I tried to tell you I could use a gun," the redhead answered with a one-shouldered shrug.

"Before this turns into an argument, can we just go see what these lions were guarding?" Elena asked on a sigh.

"I'd like to see why we were almost lunch," Sully added.

"Door one or two first?" Drake turned away from the others but stopped short when Sully snorted and Elena snickered. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Jayden trying to hide his smirk and scowled. "What's so funny?"

"I think you may have gotten a little too close to one of those lions, Kid." Sully grinned at Drake and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Huh?" Drake tried to look behind him, but of course couldn't actually see anything, so he ran his hands over his waist and backside. His jeans were sliced across the pockets, as were parts of his boxers beneath. His ass was showing through the slits in the denim and cotton, but it wasn't as though he was completely exposed. "Hey, some people might find this stylish."

"Those people are generally younger and prettier than you, Nate," laughed Sully.

"Yeah, the look doesn't really suit you." Jayden smirked.

"Well, unfortunately I forgot to pack an extra pair of jeans for this little jaunt into the depths of the planet, so you'll just have to live with me showing a bit of skin for now," Drake answered with a shake of his head. He sighed to himself and continued what he was doing. Moving back into the tunnel, he kept his gun raised, just in case.

Chuckling, the others followed.

Together, they backtracked down the dark tunnel, Drake leading and Sully bringing up the rear. They were all a little nervous that there might be more predators down here, but it didn't stop them. They needed to see what the lions were protecting.

Drake rounded the bend in the tunnel first, entering what had been the den. The floor was covered in a thin layer of trampled straw, piles of old bones and cloth. The room was large and roughly circular, another tunnel branching off the other side. Other than the skeletons of people, there really wasn't anything interesting in the actual den, so they continued straight through to the next tunnel. This section of the underground passage wasn't as long as the last and it widened quickly into a natural cavern.

A blue green lake stretched off in one direction, a rocky shore bleeding into a forest of undiscovered flora. The heavy, humid air was filled with the rustle and chirps of insects and small nocturnal creatures. A diffused light filtered in from somewhere overhead, making the surface of the unnaturally still lake glitter.

"I bet the lions were surviving by eating whatever lives in the water," Jayden said as they headed away from the tunnel, toward the lake.

"Probably a good guess. So. Where should we look first?" Drake crossed his arms, scanning the cavern. Something small and furry scurried from under a bush nearby, ran across the toes of his shoes and disappeared into the shade of a large-leafed plant.

"What makes you so sure there's anything down here? Maybe those lions were just kept for sport and weren't guarding anything," said Jayden.

"_It waits beneath the world_ and _The Guardian Beneath the trees_…lead me to believe there's something down here," Drake replied with a shrug. "Most of the time people don't write stuff like that just for fun."

"There's a lot of ground to cover, Nate," Elena said, glancing up at him and brushing a strand of hair off her face.

"Why don't we save you the trouble?"

Drake turned at the sound of the voice. "Crap." A few feet away stood Hayden, Lindsay and Percy as well as three other large men, all carrying large guns that were pointed at Drake, Sully, Elena and Jayden.

"Thanks for taking care of those bothersome lions, little brother," Hayden said, a smile that didn't reach his eyes curved his lips.

Drake's mouth twitched in a grimace. This wasn't going to go well…


	8. Part Eight

"How did you get down here, Hayden?" Jayden asked, annoyance and boredom in his voice.

Hayden coughed into a handkerchief and Drake noticed the speckles of blood on his chin before he wiped them away. He was still drenched in sweat like before and his skin ashen.

"The forest is filled with caves and natural tunnels. We just found the back way in, that's all." The elder Risyn brother shrugged, tucking his bloodied handkerchief into his pocket.

"I never understood how the bad guys are always one step ahead of us," Sully grumbled.

"Shut it, old man. You and blondie there aren't exactly on my good side after destroying my camp. I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself if you don't want to end up as chew toys for my new dogs." Hayden glowered at Sully before turning his charming grin back on Drake and Jayden.

"Your dogs? Is that what you're calling Percy and Lindsay now? That's not very nice, Hayden," said Drake, clicking his tongue and cutting Sully off before he started arguing with Hayden.

The grin slipped into a smirk. "You are amusing, Nathan. But I assure you, when I said dogs I was speaking of real four legged beasts. Well, perhaps not _real_ exactly. My dogs are more mythological in nature."

Drake frowned at Hayden, thinking. He felt Sully and Elena looking at him, waiting for him to figure out what Hayden was talking about. His shoulders slumped and he hung his head. "You're kidding me," he mumbled.

Hayden beamed at Drake, proud that the man understood. "I'm not. They're quite real, Nathan. The hounds that Yama used to guard Hell." Hayden paused. "And now they belong to me."

Drake could almost hear Sully's jaw hit the ground. "Hell hounds? Are you freakin' nuts?

"Would you like to see them for yourselves?" Hayden questioned with a raised eyebrow. Behind him, Percy and Lindsay tried to hide their worried expressions.

"Y'know, we're getting a bit off topic here. I'd like to see what the lions were guarding," Drake replied, nonchalantly.

The smirk grew a bit wider. "Well, in that case, I suppose we can kill two birds with one stone. I put the statuettes into the care of my new pets." Hayden raised his hand to his mouth, put his thumb and index finger to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. Silently from the bushes to either side of Hayden's crew, a massive black beast appeared. One came and stood on his left and another on his right, their giant heads reaching Hayden's shoulders. Each dog had four eyes, just as the folklore described. The dogs' fur, shaggy like that of a wolf, rippled like water even though there was no breeze to speak of in this underground cavern. Their power, both physical and somewhat mystical was visible in their muscular shoulders, chest and legs that ended in feet bigger than a man's head.

A shiver of fear and adrenaline ran through Drake. These horrifying, mythological, four-eyed dog monsters that stood beside Hayden seemed solid and ghostly at the same time. Each of their four eyes was flat black and empty, soul sucking and almost impossible not to stare into.

Hayden put one hand on top of each dog's head; the air around his arms became hazy and rippled. He flinched, but didn't remove his hands.

"Boys, show me your Worth."

The animals let out a low, far off sound, almost like a distant thunder and bowed their heads. They closed their eyes and extended one foreleg. A gentle rumble rolled through the stone beneath their feet and the dogs lifted their heads. Between their paws, each one had two small, golden statuettes.

"Do those mean anything to you, Kid?" Sully asked, keeping his eyes on the dogs.

Drake frowned at the statuettes. A sun, a spear and sword, a sickle and hoe, and a pair of hands holding a bolt of fabric. "The four classes," he said.

"What four classes?" Jayden asked, keeping his eyes trained on his brother.

"Let's see just how much you know on this subject, Nathan. Tell your friends and my brother what each statuette symbolizes," Hayden said, removing his hands from the dogs and crossing his arm. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face and his eyes looked unfocused.

"Are you sure you don't just want me to explain it all because you really have no clue?" Drake asked, tone deceptively light.

The dogs lowered their heads and growled.

Drake raised his hands. "Okay, okay. The sun represents the Priests who worshipped Homozd. The sword and shield are for the Warriors who protected the people through their strength, the sickle and hoe for the Farmers who grew the grain so the people could eat and the hands are for the Artisans who created things for the people so they could live easier and be entertained. Jamshid was a favored ruler who bettered the lives of his subjects until he started to go mad with the power of the cup."

"Very good, Nathan! It seems you are not so single minded in your knowledge after all. I bet you also know where these belong." The end of Hayden's sentence was clipped short as he pulled out his handkerchief and coughed violently into the white cloth.

Drake glanced at Jayden, who had a spark of worry in his eyes.

"Well, Nathan?" Hayden croaked, tucking his handkerchief away when the coughing subsided.

"We didn't see anywhere for those to go," said Drake, eyeing the dogs. They never blinked, which somehow unnerved him more than their four eyes did.

Disappointment crossed Hayden's features. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that lie? It's sad that you would think I'm that much of an idiot. You know what to do with these and you know how to get me the cup. I think you may need a little motivation to help me though."

Drake, Elena, Sully and Jayden took a collective step backward and raised their weapons. Hayden merely laughed at them, which irritated Drake.

The elder Risyn brother put his hands on the dogs again, once again wincing with the action. "Guard," he told them.

The mythological beasts moved forward. Despite their massive frames and enormous feet, they made no sounds. They didn't care that there was a handgun and two rifles trained on them, they steadily crossed the space between Hayden's team and Drake's. One dog stopped in front of Drake, looked him in the eye and huffed in disdain before placing himself between Drake and Elena. The other dog stood on Elena's other side, separating her from Sully.

"What the hell are you doing, Hayden?" Jayden stepped away from the others, putting a little distance between himself and the beasts.

Hayden wiped sweat from his brow and looked from one dog to the other, satisfied. "I need the cup. If Nathan tries to do anything to impede that, my dogs will tear her skin off and damn her to Hell. I just have to say the word."

Elena glanced at Drake, worried and scared. "Nate."

"Crap." Pursing his lips, Drake held Elena's gaze for a few seconds while he weighed his options.

"We don't have much of a choice, Kid," Sully told him quietly.

"Hayden's kinda stubborn and a little crazy, Drake. When he wants something, he'll do anything to get it," Jayden whispered.

"I know, I just…" Drake trailed off with a scowl.

"Nate, if this thing is as powerful as you say it is, you can't let him get his hands on it," Elena told him, giving him a pleading expression. She looked over the dog that stood between them, her eyes searching his.

"Elena, you know I—"

"Nate," she interrupted, her sharp expression cutting him off.

Drake inhaled and exhaled slowly before turning away from Elena and holstering his gun. He glanced at Sully, who after a short staring contest lowered his AK.

"I'll help you, but I want my journal back," Drake said, hands clenched at his sides.

Hayden shrugged as he reached into his pocket. "There's nothing more of interest to me anyway," he replied as he tossed the small book back to Drake. "Lead the way, Nathan."

Fighting the urge to punch Hayden in the throat, Drake turned and started back the way they came. He was too aware of the guns aimed at the back of his head and the massive, black Hell dogs blocking him from Elena. He wasn't being given a choice here and that was making him angry and nervous. Hayden obviously wanted the cup because he was sick, probably dying, but no one should have the power of immortality. Even though Jamshid had the Elixir of Life, he still ended up dead because his people turned on him.

As Drake led the way back through the tunnel and arena toward the pedestal room, he tried to think of a way this wouldn't end with Elena ripped to shreds, but he kept drawing blanks. He couldn't even see how these four statuettes would open the main pedestal. There were more than four platforms for them to be placed upon. And he had no doubt that Hayden would sic his dogs on them if he didn't figure it out fast enough.

When the group entered the pedestal room, a ripple of whispers moved through Hayden's team as they saw the lion motif on the floor. Drake and his team all wore flat expressions.

"Your guys are easily impressed," commented Drake, shaking his head.

Hayden scoffed and strolled casually into the middle of the room. He looked up at the chandelier overhead and the ornately carved walls. His eyes eventually fell to the floor and he regarded the jeweled motif. Tipping his head to one side, he stifled another coughing fit and slid his hands into his pockets. "All right, Nathan. Let's see how quickly your mind works. I'll give you five minutes to do what needs to be done before I give my pets their command."

Drake turned to face Hayden. "Oh c'mon!" he shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "Stop acting like you even know what's going on! You just stumbled onto these by accident. You have no clue what those statuettes are for, no idea what this room is for. Stop being so high and mighty and let me figure this out," he told the man, pretending he hadn't been doing that exact same thing. He shot a glare toward Hayden before looking back at the pedestals.

Hayden raised an eyebrow, keeping his bloodshot eyes on Drake. He didn't say anything, just motioned for Lindsay and Percy to bring the statuettes forward. They placed them in the center of the room and rejoined the rest of the men around the perimeter.

Taking out his journal and the pencil tucked into the spine, Drake started sketching each statuette while he thought about the puzzle. How could this work? Four statuettes and fifteen platforms, not including the one with the flat top. Was it an order they needed to be placed; was there a particular pedestal for each one?

The Priest.

The Warrior.

The Farmer.

The Artisan.

What order did they need to be? What significance did each one have that might make it more important than the others.

"Three minutes, Nathan."

"I'm thinking! I've got nothing to go on here."

Elena let out a whimper and Drake's train of thought came to a screeching halt. He looked over at her and felt his heart leap into his throat. The dogs were leaning on Elena, looking like they were just trying to be affectionate and companionable, but that was not the case. The air around her was wavy and blurred, and it almost seemed like she was phasing in and out. Or at least, parts of her were. Her eyebrows twitched in pain and her mouth was a tight line.

"You're wasting time, Nathan. Two minutes left," Hayden informed him.

Drake tore his eyes away from Elena and forced his mind to work on the puzzle. Priest, Warrior, Farmer, Artisan. How the hell was he supposed to know what the order was? Usually he had a little more information to go on and the rather serious time constraint he was under really wasn't helping him focus.

"One minute."

"Shut up!" Drake's heart was pounding in his chest as he looked from the four golden statuettes to the platforms. He turned in a slow circle, looking at each platform. Just now he noticed there was an odd placement to them. Five platforms were slightly larger than the others, one of which was the one that would open to another tunnel. So the statuettes would sit on the other four. But what about the other eleven? And why was there only one to the left and one to the right of the main platform while the remaining nine were placed evenly around the rest of the circle?

Elena made another pained whimper.

"Ten…nine…eight…"

Drake looked frantically around the room, his eyes scanning the stone-like faces of the people lining the walls.

"Five…four…three…"

A light bulb clicked on in Drake's head.

"Two…on—"

"I've got it! I've figured it out!" he called, raising his hands almost involuntarily. "I know what I have to do." His voice sounded too much like pleading to his ears.

"Good, because her time is up."

Near the entrance to the room, Elena screamed.


	9. Part Nine

"Elena!" Drake yelled, taking a step toward her. He had to stop himself before running over to her; if he did, Hayden would have her killed for sure.

"She doesn't have long, Nathan. You had best tell me the solution before all that remains of her is a pool of blood on this beautiful floor," Hayden said as he wiped sweat from his brow.

Drake looked at Elena, eyebrows knitted together. The dogs were still leaning on her, using their powers on her. Parts of her were beginning to go transparent and blood dripped from her fingers even though there were no visible wounds.

"You've gotta do _something_, Kid," Sully said, glancing from Drake to Elena.

Drake cursed under his breath. He knew he had to do this, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "Call them off first," Drake told Hayden.

"Why would I do that?"

"It's not like we can do anything to you. We're out numbered, for one thing. No matter how you spin it, _you_ still have the upper hand, Hayden." To make his point clear, he pulled the pistol he miraculously still possessed from his holster and tossed it to the floor. "See? Nothing I can do."

Surprisingly, Jayden also tossed his weapon.

Drake looked to Sully, silently pleading with the man. They stared at one another for a few heartbeats before Sully mumbled something under his breath and handed both of his weapons off to the nearest of Hayden's mercenaries.

"Let her go, Hayden. Please." It looked like it was almost painful for Jayden to ask anything of his brother.

The elder Risyn brother thought about it for what felt like an eternity. Blood continued to drip from Elena's fingers and a fresh, unseen wound caused more blood to stream down her face from somewhere under her blonde hair. Hayden was watching her suffer with some sort of perverse satisfaction. Eventually though, he nodded. "Away," he told the dogs. They obeyed, standing up straight and padding silently from the room. Elena wavered before collapsing to her knees.

Again, Drake had to stop himself from rushing to her side. He felt better about it this time since Sully was there with her. Drake needed to open the passage or Hayden would end up putting a bullet in someone's head.

"Now Nathan, would you kindly stop stalling and get this done?" Hayden asked through gritted teeth. His voice was not quite as genial as it had been.

Drake didn't reply as he went to grab the first of the four statuettes. The Priest. Walking across the circle, he placed this statuette on the first larger pedestal to the left of the one that was going to open, or what he called the main pedestal. Next, he placed the Warrior on the first larger pedestal to the right of the main one. Next to the Warrior, there were three of the smaller pedestals and then another larger one. On this one, he placed the Farmer. There were another three smaller pedestals and then he placed the Artisan. Another three smaller pedestals and the circle came back to the first statuette he had placed.

"All of the statuettes are placed. Why is nothing happening?" Hayden questioned, his eyes wide and his voice close to panic.

"Because I'm not done yet," Drake told him. "Jayden, go stand on the platform with the Warrior," he instructed.

The redhead looked confused, but obliged. He left his spot by the door and crossed the circle. He easily hoped up onto the pedestal, the short statuette between his feet. A soft _click_ echoed through the room.

"Okay, who here is religious? And I mean _really_ religious?" Drake asked the men. Lindsay raised his hand.

"I was supposed to become a priest," he said.

Drake blinked at the man. "Seriously? Uh, never mind. You know where to go." Drake watched the man step up onto the pedestal. There was another _click_. "So, you all see where this is going, right? Next, I need an Artisan. Someone who creates things for the good of others. Don't care what it is you create, as long as it's for others."

Reluctantly, Percy parted from the group and stepped up onto the pedestal with the Artisan statuette. A third _click_.

"Farmer?" Drake raised an eyebrow at the mercenaries. He felt like this one could be a long shot.

"My parents farm and I have a garden at home," one big guy admitted.

"Good enough," Drake said with a shrug.

The man took his post. _Click_.

Drake inhaled deeply and spoke on his exhale. "Okay Sully, I want you on the smaller pedestal between the main one and Priest. Hayden on the one between the main pedestal and Warrior," he told them. The men took their places. "Great. Now I want the rest of you on the remaining pedestals. Doesn't matter where." Once the mercenaries filled up the nine pedestals, Drake looked at the main one, hands on his hips.

"What now, Nate? I feel like we're waiting to become museum pieces," Sully grumbled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Drake glanced over his shoulder to where Elena was slumped against the wall, chin resting against her chest. "Normally I would think Jamshid or someone of equal importance would be the one to stand on the middle pedestal, but since no one else is here to do it, I'll have to fill in for now." With a shrug and a glance at Sully, Drake hopped up onto the last empty pedestal and waited.

"Why is nothing happening?" Hayden growled.

Drake opened his mouth, ready to reply when there was a series of clicks and bangs and the sound of stone grinding against stone. The floor stared to vibrate beneath their feet and dust fell from the ceiling far above their heads. The pedestal Drake was standing on started to move backward in short jerks at first, the mechanism rusty. He stumbled, but kept his balance and rode it out. Eventually it slid all the way back, revealing an old, crumbling stone staircase that descended at a steep angle.

A grin swept across Hayden's face. It looked half-crazed.

"Care to explain, Kid? Because that made little-to-no sense," Sully said, glancing from Drake to the staircase and back again.

Drake huffed through his nose and shrugged. "It was a serious long-shot, Sul'. The only recurring theme, and therefore clue, I could think of was _people_. Jamshid did everything to better the lives of his subjects and was loved by them in turn. Until he went mad with power, that is. Besides the placement of the four statuettes and the people who stood with them, the remainder was basically a weight mechanism, I think. Probably could have filled the rest of the platforms with rocks."

"Enough talking," Hayden wheezed as he tried to stifle more coughing. "Nathan, since you opened this, I believe you ought to lead the way down as well."

"Very sweet of you to think of me," grumbled Drake. "Just give me a minute," he then said to the man as he hopped back down and crossed to where Elena still sat collapsed against the wall. He squatted next to her and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. She blinked up at him, her eyes taking a moment to focus.

"Nate," she mumbled, frowning and raising a hand to her head.

"How 'ya feeling?" he asked with a soft smile.

She squeezed her eyes shut and scowled. "Drained," she told him.

Drake smirked. "That sounds about right. Think you can stand?"

Elena thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I'm good. Help me up."

Drake took Elena's hands, tacky with blood, and hauled her to her feet. They walked back across the room together and he handed her off to Sully. He was well aware of everyone's eyes on him as he helped Elena, but he couldn't care less.

Hayden, who had been surprisingly patient with Drake up to this point, was beginning to lose his temper. He stopped Drake as the man headed for the new opening, grabbed the front of his mud-encrusted shirt and yanked him forward.

"I have tolerated your delays and attitude long enough, Drake. Only because I need you for the tasks I'm too weak to complete myself. But I can always do away with you and use my little brother in your stead if I have to. I just have to say a simple word and my dogs will be back, you understand?" Hayden hissed in Drake's face.

Drake almost flinched at the smell of rot and death on Hayden's breath. "Have you hidden behind stronger people your whole life, or just since you learned you were dying?" Drake asked, smacking Hayden's hands away.

The men glared at one another, testing each other. Things were getting dangerously close to a fistfight before Jayden stepped in, shouldering between the two men.

"Drake, let's just get this over with," Jayden said, pretending his brother wasn't standing behind him.

Drake glanced at Jayden and back at the older brother before turning away. The redhead fell into step beside him, snatching a flashlight from one of the mercenaries on the way by.

"You don't seem all that concerned that your brother is trying to become immortal or that he's dying," Drake said, giving Jayden a sideways glance.

He shrugged, the flashlight beam bouncing with the movement. "It's hard to explain, but that's just how things have always been between us. We may be brothers, but that's as far as our common bond goes. We're basically strangers. I don't have enough of a relationship with him to care. As far as the whole 'immortal' thing goes, I highly doubt you'll let that happen." Jayden panned the light over the rough, narrow walls of the stairwell. Wherever they were going, it was a long way down. "Besides," he said after a moment, "the man wanted to torture me for _fun_."

"A valid point," Drake conceded. "Christ, would it have killed these people to build things at ground-level? Or at the very least _not_ the center of the Earth? I'm not Jules Verne."

Jayden's amused snort made an odd echo in the narrow passage. "I wouldn't mind an escalator."

"Would you two shut up?" grumbled Lindsay, trailing a few feet behind as he followed them down the stairs.

"For a man whose name is Lindsay, you don't have much of a sense of humor," Drake told the big man as they continued their descent.

"I'm not paid to have a sense of humor," the man answered.

Drake scoffed and shook his head. "Hey, I think that's the bottom," he said, pointing ahead of them into the darkness.

Jayden shone the light directly down the steps. At the bottom of the narrow stairwell was a single wooden door. It was heavy, knotted, splintering wood with huge rusty hinges and a rusted metal band across the center. The handle was an enormous ring of thick, pitted steel. From behind the door there was a long, low, pained moan.

"Oh, that's not a good sound."


	10. Part Ten

The moan came again and Jayden and Drake glanced at one another.

"You first, bud," said Jayden, nudging Drake.

"You have the flashlight."

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure Hayden asked _you_ to go."

Drake gave Jayden a dark look. "Seriously?"

Jayden answered with a sweep of his hand toward the door.

"Thanks for the support, pal." Drake snatched the flashlight from Jayden and descended the last few steps. He pursed his lips and stared at the door for a moment like it would give him insight into what was on the other side. Squaring his shoulders, he lifted the pitted metal ring and pushed on the door.

"Well?" Jayden tipped his head to try and see over Drake's shoulder.

"It's stuck."

"What? No way."

"I think the wood has swollen over the years. Give me a hand." He crooked his finger at Jayden and leaned one shoulder against the door. With an annoyed sigh, the redhead joined him, putting his own shoulder to the door. "Okay, on the count of three. One…two…three!" Together the men slammed themselves against the door. Even with all their weight behind them, the door barely shook. They tried again. And again. And again.

"My whole arm is bruised," Jayden complained, rubbing his shoulder.

"What's the hold up?" Lindsay asked, stomping down the stairs to join Drake and Jayden.

"Door's stuck."

Lindsay grumbled and shoved Drake out of the way. The big man regarded the wooden door for a moment, contemplating how to open it. Everything was quiet as Drake and Jayden watched him. Suddenly the big man leaned back, lifted his foot and slammed his boot into the center of the metal band. With a squeal, the hinges popped from the stone and the door collapsed inward, hitting the floor with an echoing crash.

Drake had to stop his jaw from hitting the floor. He blinked at the hole where the door had been and then up at Lindsay. "We loosened it for you."

Lindsay glowered briefly at Drake before grabbing him and almost throwing him into the darker-than-black room. Drake stumbled, the toe of his show hitting the bottom of the door. He caught himself before kissing the floor, which by the feel of it beneath his feet, that was probably a very good thing. The stench wafting up from it just solidified that belief.

"Uhh…hello?" Drake asked into the darkness. He shone the light into the room, the beam absorbed by the blackness.

"You really think someone's gonna answer you?" Jayden called from the doorway.

"I'm really hoping not," he answered, pointing the light at his feet. "Uh, guys? Floors don't normally _pulsate_, do they?"

"Only when I'm really drunk," Jayden replied. "Why?"

"Because I think I may be standing on something living," Drake answered, right before the 'floor' lurched beneath his feet. "Whoa!" The light beam from the flashlight waved wildly as Drake tried to keep his balance.

Whatever unnaturally huge beast Drake was standing on huffed and snorted a breath in his face. The foul smelling snort was almost like a gale-force wind. After it almost knocked him on his ass, it started snuffling, sucking him in, just by breathing. It was smelling him, and Drake was admittedly terrified because he couldn't see what it was. But he wasn't being eaten yet, and that was a good sign.

"I hear something _really_ big breathing. You okay?" Jayden called, leaning into the room.

"For the second." Drake let out a breath, staying as still as he could while the beast investigated him. He was afraid that if he moved, it would swallow him whole. It continued to sniff him and the same pained moan they heard before seemed to come from all around him. The creature had to be the one making the sound.

Drake was debating whether he should make a run for it or hang around and do some investigating when light filled the room. One second it was too dark, and the next his eyes were burning from the sudden illumination. He blinked, making tears run down his dirt streaked face. He wiped them away and forced himself to look past the weird after-images from the light change and then blinked again to make sure he was seeing the right thing. Two enormous yellow eyes looked at him, disturbingly lizard-like. His first though was _Dragon!_.

"Holy shit!"

Drake chanced a quick glance over his shoulder to where Lindsay and Jayden were still standing in the doorway. They both looked horrified and amazed, eyes round and mouths hanging open.

Drake turned back to the creature, his eyes now taking in more than just the eyes staring back at him. He was standing on a peeling, dark green, scale covered body, just off to the side of long spike-like protrusions. The spikes trailed along the creature's back, from the top of its iguana-like head to the end of its long tail. A horn protruded on either side of its skull, curving back and toward the ceiling. It tipped its head to one side, a forked tongue flicking in the air around Drake, tasting him. He remained still while it did, keeping his eyes focused on the yellow and purple streaks by its eyes.

The pained moan came from the lizard again, but this time it morphed into more of an excited squeal.

"Uhh?" Drake looked back to Jayden for help, but the redhead was rooted to the floor, stunned. The lizard started to move and Drake lost his footing, slipping on an enormous scale. Between his heartbeat thumping in his ears and trying to keep his balance, Drake still managed to notice the lizard's face was changing; it was shifting, shrinking before his eyes.

"Oh no, oh crap! Crap, crap, crap!" Drake's feet came out from under him and he was falling. It wasn't a very long fall and he was hitting the ground a split second after he toppled. He hit the ground flat on his back, the air forced from his lungs. A wheeze escaped him and he stared up at the ceiling. "Ow…"

Excited chirps, sharp and clicking, came from somewhere to his right, so Drake begrudgingly turned his head to see what was making the sounds. He frowned as he sat up, flicking a glance up at Lindsay and Jayden. "Did I hit my head on the way down? Are you guys seeing this too?"

Jayden's eyes were enormous as he looked at the figure standing next to Drake. "Unless this is a mass hallucination, we are all seeing a naked lizard lady."

"Awesome." Drake turned to the female whatever-she-was and stared at her, still unsure if he was seeing something real. Before him stood a naked, scaly, green skinned woman. She looked up at him with the same bright yellow eyes of the big lizard. Tilting her head to one side, she chirped at him again, blinking with strange translucent eyelids.

"Holy crap. She's a lizard." Drake watched her observing him, tilting her head from side to side and scampering around him on all fours. On top of her head, she had long, fleshy tentacles that seemed to take the place of hair. They hung limply down her back, looking extremely heavy as they swayed back and forth with her movements. More than once they brushed over the spikes running down her back, but she never seemed to notice. She grinned, barring a row of razor sharp teeth. Drake's eyebrows shot upward and he took an involuntary step backward. She didn't seem concerned at his reaction. Drake held her gaze, noticing the same yellow and purple stripes by her eyes as she got close to him, her forked tongue poking between her mossy green lips. She flicked her tongue at him, tasting the mud and sweat on his face. Once she was satisfied with that, she reached out with one four-fingered hand and touched the stubble on his jaw. Her touch was slightly sticky, but it didn't leave any residue behind when she removed her hand.

"I think she likes you," Jayden said after she let out an excited trill and pressed herself against Drake.

"Uh, yeah. I'm getting that. "Drake looked down at her and gave her an unsteady smile.

"Stop wasting time. What is this place and what is her purpose?" Lindsay growled, making sure they didn't miss the gun in his hand.

Drake lifted his hands. "Calm down, big guy. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this soon," he said before turning back to the lizard woman. "Can you talk? Because that would be really helpful."

Her head tilted from one side to the other in a jerky motion and she blinked at him again.

"Of course not," sighed Drake, chin dropping to his chest. "It's probably silly of me to ask if you have a name."

She replied with a strange clicking sound in her throat and showed her teeth again. She tipped her head, her long fleshy hair-tentacles swaying to one side. There was a long, awkward moment where she just stared at him some more. She didn't move, didn't blink, didn't even twitch. Drake almost jumped out of his skin when she finally did move because it was such an abrupt motion when she grabbed his arm and started pulling him toward the back wall.

"Looks like she wants to show me something," Drake said, allowing himself to be pulled along.

"No shit."

Lindsay grunted his impatience and tagged along behind, gripping his gun a little tighter than necessary.

As he was being pulled along, Drake took the time to look around the room. Compared to the grand scale of the other chambers down here, this room was rather boring. It was a simple stone room, the walls rough and uneven. The floor was only a bit smoother than the walls and there were puddles of standing water everywhere. It looked like a standard cave, except that it was extremely well lit for there to be no discernible light source.

The lizard woman was taking Drake to what looked like a waist-high stone shelf that protruded at least six feet from the back wall. Set into the shelf was a natural basin filled with unnatural water that was both swirling and still at once. The water reflected a clear, star filled night sky even though there was only stone overhead.

Drake couldn't help the small gasp that escaped him. He looked from the basin, to the woman and back. "This is it, isn't it?" he asked her, eyes twinkling with excitement. "This is the Elixir of Life!"

"You're kidding?" Jayden stepped up next to Drake and looked down into the water. His eyes doubled in size. "Seriously?"

A small chuckle escaped Drake. "Yeah, this is it! I'm sure of it!" He grinned from ear-to-ear as he leaned over the basin, looking into the water.

"If you're sure," Lindsay said, his voice hard. He pulled a radio out of his pocket. "Drake found it."

There was no reply from the radio, but the sound of many pairs of boots coming down the stairs reached them. Suddenly a very cold chill ran down Drake's spine as he waited with Jayden and Lindsay.


	11. Part Eleven

It was almost as though the lizard woman sensed his unease. She hopped up onto the stone shelf, her talons digging into the rock. She put her hands on his shoulders, yanking him backwards. Her grip was tight, almost painful even though her sharp nails were barely grazing his shirt. Just the pressure of her fingers alone was enough to make him wince.

"It's okay," Drake found himself telling her. He had no idea why he felt the need to placate her. She could transform into a giant lizard, for crap sake! She clutched his shoulders tightly, the bizarre pained moan coming from her again.

Jayden backed up next to Drake as they waited for the others to come down the stairs. He glanced over at Drake and the lizard woman. "This is not going to go well," he said. "I've already told you how crazy my brother is. If that stuff really is the Elixir, you can't let him get his hands on it."

"I know. I don't think our new friend wants that either. She's gonna put holes in my shoulders if she squeezes any harder."

Jayden's eyes darted to where she was perched. She looked ready to pounce on anything that came near Drake or the basin. "Let's hope she can scare him off."

Drake nodded as Hayden appeared in the doorway. He looked disappointed as he entered the cave.

"How dull," he grumbled, descending the short incline that separated the entrance and the basin area.

Sully and Elena came down after him, followed by Percy and the rest of the crew. "It is pretty plain compared to the other chambers," Sully said.

"Guess Jamshid didn't feel the need to present this with opulence," Drake said, trying to shrug and failing.

Sully's eyes landed on Drake and grew comically large. "Christ! What the hell is that?" he demanded, spotting the lizard woman.

"Sully," Drake began, trying to figure out what to call her when something suddenly fell into place in his brain. "I'd like you to meet The Guardian."

The Guardian leaned over Drake's shoulder to look at him, chirping in his ear. The sound was very much a question. She was asking about Sully.

Drake just gave her a small nod as he watched Hayden's expression change from disappointment to intrigue. "Guardian?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "But the guardians were the lions."

"Yeah, I thought so, too. But I'm pretty sure _she's_ the real Guardian. When we got down here, she was actually a giant lizard…thing. She changed into this when she realized I'm not a threat," explained Drake.

Hayden looked to Lindsay for confirmation. The big man nodded.

"Shoot it," Hayden told his men.

The guns came up.

"Wait!" Drake shouted, raising his arms. "We need her!"

"How do you know that?"

Drake tried not to roll his eyes. "C'mon. I know you have the cup. And I know that you know what it says. _The Guardian Beneath the trees holds the key…_"

"That does sound like a pretty good indicator," Sully said.

Hayden shot him a glare. "Fine. It lives for now. Get out of the way so I can see the Elixir." Hayden's words were clipped as he started hacking again. His face was red and he struggled to breathe once he was done.

"I'd love to," Drake said once Hayden stopped coughing. "But Guardian has a pretty firm grip on me." Drake could move if he wanted, but he had a theory to test that would only work if Hayden got close to Guardian.

Sully looked at Drake with an expression that said _"Are you trying to get yourself shot, Kid?"_.

Drake silent reply told Sully he knew what he was doing. He gave Elena the same look, hoping she understood. She still looked a little out of it, but she was following what was going on well enough.

"There's still plenty of room for you to look. Don't let me stop you," Drake said, turning his attention back to Hayden. "Jayden, go stand with Sully," he then told the redhead, his voice low.

"Uh…okay." Jayden moved slowly away from the basin with his hands out so no one would accidentally shoot him.

Hayden and Drake stared one another down until Hayden finally gave in and started toward the basin. He kept his chin up, trying to look proud despite the bags under his eyes, the sweat drenching his shirt and his laboured breathing.

Behind Drake, Guardian started to hiss softly, leaning closer to him. Her lips curled back, exposing her teeth. He noticed her scaly skin was beginning to take on a red hue. Hayden cast a nervous glance at her, but continued forward. Once he was within arm's reach, Guardian leapt up onto Drake's shoulders like a parrot, almost knocking him on his ass. Her skin had gone an angry red, she had fins coming out of her neck like those of a Frilled Lizard and she was hissing loudly. The hissing only stopped when she decided to spit at Hayden instead.

Hayden almost tripped over himself trying to back up. For a brief moment, he looked utterly terrified, but his expression fell flat as he regained his composure.

"Oh look, Hayden. Someone else who hates you," Jayden said, crossing his arms and leaning his weight on one leg.

Clearly Hayden had enough of being made fun of. He took the pistol from his waistband, turned toward his brother and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed and Jayden sucked a breath between his teeth. Blood ran down Jayden's arm and dripped from his fingers.

"Learn to keep your mouth shut. Next time I will kill you," growled Hayden, slipping his gun back into his waistband.

Jayden rolled his eyes. "Don't pretend that's not what you intended to do anyway. You've always been a shit shot." He stared at his brother, letting his arm bleed.

"You scream like a girl when you get grazed, but you barely even flinch when he actually _shoots_ you?" Drake questioned, eyes wide.

Jayden shrugged. "I was putting on an act then."

Drake narrowed his eyes at the redhead as Guardian bent over his head, chattering by his ear. Her weight was making it hard to keep his balance, and it didn't help that she kept moving around. She had her feet on his shoulders and was contorted so that she was twisted over him, clutching his shirt. She continued to chatter in his ear and for some reason he wasn't quite sure of, he could understand what she was saying as clearly as she was speaking English.

"She thinks you're a bad man for wounding the blood-haired one," Drake relayed. "Not that any of us thought you were all that good before."

"Enough!" bellowed Hayden. His face had gone red, veins standing out on his neck as he was practically vibrating with rage. With a clenched jaw, Hayden went back to one of his men who carried a large pack. Everyone watched him as he tore open a zipped and began to rummage around inside.

Guardian chirped in Drake's ear again, climbing back down onto the basin and gently knocking one of her curved horns against the side of his head. While Hayden searched in the pack, she let go of Drake and hopping down from the basin. Standing straight beside him, she started walking forward, her talons tapping lightly on the stone floor. Her long, thick tail swayed gently with her movements. A few of Hayden's men raised their weapons, unsure.

Sully and Drake exchanged an uneasy glance.

Hayden looked up and saw how close Guardian was. The panic in his eyes was clear. He didn't have time to react before she raised her arm and backhanded the man standing between her and Hayden. The mercenary went flying, hitting the wall with a thud before falling unconscious to the ground.

"If you're smart, you'll back down before this goes any further," Sully told Hayden, readjusting his grip on Elena.

"She is the Guardian for a reason," Drake added.

The elder Risyn wasn't listening. "Why isn't anyone shooting her? What do I pay you idiots for?" he demanded, glancing around at his mercenaries.

"You don't pay us enough to be killed, mate," one of them said, watching as Guardian's skin faded into red again. She stepped forward on one foot, arms and shoulders back as she bent at the waist and hissed violently at Hayden. The fins opened again and she spit some sort of viscous, foul-smelling liquid at the man. The mercenaries all backed up, excluding Percy and Lindsay, who remained on either side of Sully and Elena.

Taking a few steps backward, stumbling on his own feet, Hayden let out a sharp whistle. From up by the door, the two Hell hounds appeared once again. "Attack!" he shouted, scooping up the pack the mercenary had dropped.

Spotting the dogs when they appeared, Guardian hesitated. She glanced at Drake, who wore a grim expression. She seemed to get what she needed from him because her eyes darkened and she went after the dogs. The massive hounds were on her in an instant, snarling and gnashing their teeth like any rabid dog would have. Drake was almost disappointed they weren't using supernatural powers of some sort. Guardian grabbed one of them and threw it against the wall. It didn't make a noise or even flinch as it charged at her again. She sank her fangs into one dog as the other did the same to her. Kicking out her leg, she managed to shake it off, slashing her talons across its muzzle. It continued snarling and biting at her while she tore a chunk of ghostly flesh and fur from the other with her fangs. She tossed the mutt over her head like it weighed as much as a sack of feathers. The dog slammed into a mercenary that wasn't quite quick enough and the result was horrific. The man screamed, his skin melting from his face. He clawed at the bare muscle, his eyeballs liquefying in his skull. His clothing burst into flame as the rest of his flesh and muscle sloughed off his skeleton into a wet pile on the ground. It took less than thirty seconds.

"Christ," muttered Sully, pulling Elena away from the action.

Drake wasn't distracted as long as the others, though. He knew Guardian could hold her own. She wouldn't be here to take care of the Elixir of Life if she couldn't. She wouldn't be the one who decided who was worthy of using the Elixir if she couldn't.

Speaking of those who aren't worthy…

Hayden had taken the pack and crouched behind a rock shelf to continue his search through the bag. He looked frantic, his neatly combed hair was now a mess and his skin looked waxy. His condition, whatever that may be, was deteriorating fast. He looked much worse than when they had met less than a day ago.

Drake needed to do something while he had the chance. He glanced at Guardian, who was fighting hard and was slick with blood. She was covered in bites, but she wasn't letting that stop her. The mercenaries were all watching the fight like men who had placed bets on the outcome. Drake's first couple of steps were slow, casual, almost bored, just in case someone happened to look away from the blood bath. After those two steps however, he broke into a full-out sprint, barreling toward the closest armed man. At the last second, he jumped, driving his fist into the man's face and knocking him onto the ground. Drake snatched up the gun as the others started firing on him.

"What the hell? I'm the bigger threat here?" he shouted, sprinting across the open area toward Hayden. He fired back on the run, hitting at least two of the men.

"No, but you are one we can handle," Lindsay replied, firing his weapon.

Percy was still standing beside Sully and tried to grab him, not expecting him to fight back. Even with Elena at his side, Sully could still put up a hell of a fight. He ducked out of Percy's reach and drove his elbow into the man's ribs. Percy bent at the waist and Sully kicked him, knocking him on his ass.

"Take her and get the hell out of here!" Drake called to them, punching another merc in the throat.

"No way in hell am I leaving you here, Kid!" Sully called back.

"I'll be fine! Just go!"

"I'm not going anywhere, either," Elena told him, trying her best to stand up on her own. She bent down and picked up a gun that skittered across the floor to stop at her feet.

Drake wanted to argue with her, but a bullet grazed his cheek, slicing through his ever-present stubble. He was moving again, trying to work his way toward Hayden.

Percy was on his feet again and was aiming his gun at Sully. Jayden had been silent since the chaos started, trying to protect himself, but when he saw the gun trained on Sully, he charged. He sprinted toward the trained gunman, diving at him and grabbing him around the waist. The pair hit the ground hard, rolling along the uneven stone and through the puddles. When they stopped rolling, Jayden started throwing punches. They struggled against each other, both giving and taking hits. Percy used his gun, smashing it against Jayden's jaw. The man's head snapped to the side and he grunted, but he didn't give up. His injured arm was almost useless, so he lifted his foot and stomped down on Percy's wrist. He drove his other knee into Percy's chest and swung his good arm back, slamming his fist into the other man's nose. Blood splashed over Jayden's pant leg and poured from Percy's nostrils.

The brawl was just one part of the larger fight that was taking place. Drake was still trying to get to Hayden, who had upturned the pack, still not finding what he was looking for. Sully and Elena were hiding behind another outcropping, firing at the mercenaries who were surprisingly still on their feet and Guardian was still wearing down the Hell hounds. She was painted in blood now, one of her horns had chipped and a large chunk of flesh was missing from her tail. Drake watched her grab one hound by its back leg and throw it across the chamber, narrowly missing Percy and Jayden.

Off to Drake's right, Hayden let out a bark of laughter, having finally found what he was looking for. It was the cup.

"Crap," Drake whispered before charging into the fray once again. He didn't think that Hayden was smart enough to bring the vessel. Drinking the Elixir was one thing, but drinking it from the seven-ringed cup would enhance the powers of the water. In the basin, it was powerful, but combined with the cup it became a divining liquid as well, letting him see the future and the events of the universe.

Hayden was up and moving now, too, faster than Drake had ever seen him move. They were both running toward the basin, narrowly avoiding undiscerning gunfire and fighting. Drake was just a bit faster though, reaching the basin before Hayden by no more than a second. He levelled his stolen pistol at the man.

"You really don't want to do this, Hayden," Drake told him, narrowing his eyes and shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

"I'm fairly certain I do, Drake." The man sneered at him, shoulders tense, ready to pounce.

Drake shook his head. "I understand that you don't want to die, but you don't understand this power. This isn't just a band aid."

Stepping forward until the gun was pressed against his chest, Hayden grinned at Drake. "I know more about the power than you think," he calmly informed Drake.

Before Drake could react, Hayden swung at him, the cup still in hand. It slammed into the side of Drake's head, making his vision blur. He tried to get a shot off, but it went wide and Hayden smashed the cup against his head twice more. Drake fell to his knees, his vision darkening quickly. Blood ran down his face and his ears were ringing. Another blow to the head was all he could take and he hit the stone floor face first, his gun falling from his hand and skittering across the floor.


End file.
